Get all the major facts about this groundbreaking discovery by the James Webb Space Telescope in our 1-minute read.
Astronomers have discovered frozen water ice in a distant star system just 155 lightyears away, thanks to NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope.
The star, HD 181327, is only 23 million years old – a toddler compared to our 4.6-billion-year-old Sun – and is slightly bigger and hotter
The ice found is crystalline water ice, just like that in Saturn’s rings and the Kuiper Belt, the icy zone on the edge of our Solar System
Since water is essential for life, the finding raises hopes about the potential for life in other planetary systems.
Water ice plays a key role in planet formation – especially giant planets – and may help deliver water to rocky worlds like Earth
The star has a dust-free gap near it and an icy outer debris ring, resembling our own Kuiper Belt, a region where comets and icy bodies live
This is the first clear detection of ice in a system like this—something astronomers had theorised for decades but couldn’t confirm without Webb's sensitive instruments
Frequent collisions between icy objects around the star release dust and water ice that Webb can detect, helping us understand how planetary systems evolve
Get the full story by reading our report on the discovery of water ice at young star HD 181327
