On May 16, the powerful James Space Telescope found the presence of water ice near the comet in the main asteroid belt outside the solar system.
Astronomers confirmed this by using Webb’s NIRSpec (Near-Infrared Spectrograph) instrument and by passing the gas specified as water vapour around comet 238P/R, which represents the water in ice form from the primordial solar system that can be found in the area.
Earlier, we found an object in the main belt with the full characteristics of a comet, but we found only the spectral data from the Webb, from which we can say that they indicate the evidence of water ice, as explained by the author and astronomer Michael Kelley from the University of Maryland.
Before that, comets were found in the Kuiper belt and Oort cloud, beyond the orbit of Neptune, where ice was found because they were further from the sun.
Scientists also hypothesis that water ice could be preserved in the warmer asteroid belt deep inside the orbit of Jupiter, but they do not prove it until the Webb.
Like other comets, comet 238P/read had no source of carbon dioxide (CO2). That’s why only 10 percent of the volatile material in a comet can be vaporized by the sun. The team claimed that the comet had CO2, but it got lost due to the warm temperature.
Kelley said that “for a long time, the asteroid belt could do it—CO2 vaporizes more quickly than the water ice.” In another word, he said that the comet formed in the warm pocket of the solar system, which may be the region behind the absence of carbon dioxide.
And the rest was confirmed by comparing the research on the main belt of comets to this comet. Now the Webb has given the correct news that water is preserved as close as the asteroid belt.