Radio Cadena Agramonte emisiora de Camagüey
Water is very old: it was formed at the dawn of the universe, in the heart of dense molecular clouds generated by the explosion of stars that had reached the end of their life cycle, the supernovae, and from which the disks of gas and dust from which the planets were born also originated.
It occurred between 100 and 200 million years after the Big Bang that gave rise to the universe: a very short distance on the cosmic scale, according to the result of the simulation published in the journal Nature Astronomy.
The water that sustains life, at least the one we know, was therefore formed much earlier than previously thought, observe the researchers led by Daniel Whalen, of the Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation at the British University of Portsmouth.
In light of this new panorama, the authors of the research do not rule out the possibility that water was a key ingredient in the formation of the first galaxies.
Until now, it was not at all clear when water formed in the universe because its components, hydrogen and oxygen, were formed in different ways.
Hydrogen, along with other light elements such as helium and lithium, originated with the Big Bang, while a heavy element such as oxygen is the result of nuclear reactions such as those that occur in stars and supernova explosions.
To solve this problem, Whalen's group used simulations of two supernovae, the first with a mass 13 times greater than that of the Sun and the second 200 times greater, and analyzed the elements produced in the explosions.
Thus, they saw that in both simulations, quantities of oxygen were produced that soon combined with hydrogen, giving rise to water within the dense clouds produced by the explosion and that would later generate other stars and planets.
The researchers concluded that water is capable of surviving potentially destructive processes, such as those that generate galaxies, and that billions of years ago it could have been incorporated into the process of planet formation. (Text and Photo: Cubasí)
