The Way Solar Systems Form: Icy Shards Move From The Outside Of The Disk, Inward -- Due To Friction... And They Coalesce, Around Rocky Worlds...

This is a very clear benefit of / payoff from the latest $10 billion spent on our cutting edge space telescope. We are proving -- as fact, long held theories, about how the typical proto-planetary disks move ice and ultimately water from the deep outer edges, in to the warmer close in rocky worlds... spurring atmosphere formation.

And this proof comes from our hard dollar investments in what, at the outset, may seem more like science fiction than anything else. But that is where the mantra "to dare mighty things" rises, in the luminous dawn. Here's all the latest, to explain the graphic at right, from NASA / JPL / ESA

. . .The researchers used [the 'scope's] MIRI (the Mid-Infrared Instrument) to study four disks -- two compact and two extended -- around Sun-like stars. All four of these stars are estimated to be between 2 and 3 million years old, just newborns in cosmic time.

The two compact disks are expected to experience efficient pebble drift, delivering pebbles to well within a distance equivalent to Neptune’s orbit. In contrast, the extended disks are expected to have their pebbles retained in multiple rings as far out as six times the orbit of Neptune.

[These] observations were designed to determine whether compact disks have a higher water abundance in their inner, rocky planet region, as expected if pebble drift is more efficient and is delivering lots of solid mass and water to inner planets. The team chose to use MIRI’s MRS (the Medium-Resolution Spectrometer) because it is sensitive to water vapor in disks.

The results confirmed expectations by revealing excess cool water in the compact disks, compared with the large disks. . . .

So. . . one more small, dark corner of space, pushed a lil' toward the back -- as it is seen receding under the bright lights of. . . real space science. And. . . I love it. Onward!

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