Detecting ocean-like water in a distant comet
In December 2018, Comet Wirtanen made its closest approach to Earth, and SOFIA was ready. The 747 scanned the comet, finding it to contain water that’s very similar to the water in Earth’s oceans. It was taken as further evidence that comets played a key role in delivering water to our planet during the early stages of the solar system.
“We have identified a vast reservoir of Earth-like water in the outer reaches of the solar system,” Darek Lis, a scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said in a 2019 agency statement. “Water was crucial for the development of life as we know it. We not only want to understand how Earth’s water was delivered, but also if this process could work in other planetary systems.”
