Water in Orion
Credit:
Anglo-Australian Telescope
photograph by David Malin
Is Orion all wet?
Recent observations have confirmed
that water molecules now exist in the famous
Orion Nebula,
and are still forming.
The
Orion Nebula (M42, shown above) is known to be composed mostly of
hydrogen gas, with
all other atoms and molecules being comparatively
rare. The nebula is so
vast, though, that even the measured
minuscule production rate creates enough water to fill
Earth's oceans 60 times over every day,
speculate discoverers led by M. Harwit
(Cornell).
The water that composes
comets, the oceans of Earth, and even humans may have been created in a cloud like the Orion Nebula.