Image credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, F. Peißker, J. Lu, F. Yusef-Zadeh, N. B. Sabha, C. Chin
Joel Kontinen
Astronomers detected dust and water surprisingly close to the Milky Way's central black hole, Sagittarius A*, offering a rare direct view of how evolved stars may behave in hostile settings. It is situated in the region around the star IRS 3 and it is: 26,000 light-years from Earth.
This unprecedented view of the star IRS 3 shows that it is shedding an enormous amount
of material, gas and dust to build a sprawling envelope around itself. Within
that star's envelope, scientists detected traces of water.
Although astronomers have detected water near other stars before, this is
the first time it's been found this close to the Milky Way's supermassive black hole, known as
Sagittarius A*.
The observations, described Aug. 11 in the journal Astronomy
& Astrophysics, show that even in the harsh conditions
surrounding a galaxy's central region, aging stars like IRS 3 may still be
quietly seeding their surroundings with dust. That challenges the assumption
that galactic centers are too extreme for this process to happen at all.
"The detection of water is especially exciting because it shows that
molecular material can survive in an environment dominated by intense
radiation," study co-author Macarena
Garcia Marin, a researcher at the European Space Agency, said..
Genesis, the book that explains the origin of the universe says that there is water everywhere in the galaxy, so it is not difficult to find water there.
Shreejaya Karantha 2026
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