Scientists find key ingredients for life in water-rich asteroid

Space scientists have observed a star sucking huge quantities of water from the rocky remnants of the solar system it once reigned over, providing the first evidence of water and rock around another star, two key ingredients for life as it exists on Earth.

Astronomers from the United Kingdom and Germany who published their findings in the journal Science on Friday witnessed an unusual amount of oxygen "pollution" around the white dwarf star GD 61, which is about 150 light-years from Earth.

A white dwarf represents the dead cinder of a larger star, like our own sun, that has collapsed after exhausting its fuel and expanded to destroy its surrounding solar system.

It is estimated that GD 61 became a white dwarf around 200 million years ago.

The astronomers came to the conclusion that the oxygen surrounding the star had come from a large asteroid or chunk of a planet pulled in by the dwarf's strong gravity.

Their research suggests that the solar system that once rotated around the now-defunct star had similar properties to planets around our own sun.

Astronomers believe that Earth's oceans formed after icy space rocks collided with our young planet billions of years ago. Their findings suggest that water, key to the formation of life, exists in other solar systems.

"We can say for sure that every form of life we know about in our solar system requires water," Jay Farihi, a researcher at the University of Cambridge who worked on the project, told Al Jazeera. "If you want to think about how you build an Earth, you need asteroids to deliver water to create oceans.

"We found the tools and ingredients for building Earth-like planets around another star, and very specifically we found enough water to provide an ocean," he said.

"Anywhere you find water you could find life."

Meanwhile, planetary scientists from the United States published new findings Wednesday that diamonds likely float in the atmospheres of Jupiter and Saturn. 

According to researchers Kevin Barnes of the University of Wisconsin and Mona Delitsky of California Specialty Engineering (CSE), carbon that slips deep into the planets' atmospheres could become smashed under pressure into the gems.

The carbon comes from soot created by the massive lightning storms that rage across the gas giants, both many times larger than Earth.

"The new data available has confirmed that at depth, diamonds may be floating around inside of Saturn, some growing so large that they could perhaps be called 'diamondbergs,'" according to CSE, Space.com reported.

The researchers added that the diamonds could potentially one day be mined.

Wilson Dizard contributed reporting