Hot water in cold comets: Water around comets produced with unusual properties
Thursday, September 16, 2010 - 08:28
in Astronomy & Space
Comets, sometimes called “dirty snowballs”, are largely composed of water. An international research team recently succeeded in deciphering an important aspect of the way in which water molecules often form in space. As a surprise, the water molecules produced under cold, dilute conditions turned out to be produced as particles as hot as 60,000 Kelvin. In their research the physicists, though, did not use a telescope, but a particle accelerator.