This amazing picture snapped by astronomers shows snow in space
It is believed that the presence of a snow line around stars is the first step in planet formation
ASTRONOMERS in space have announced they've captured snow around a star for the first time ever.
Researchers from the Universidad Diego Portales in Santiago, Chile, who used the Attacama Large Millimetere Array (Alma) telescope to study the star, say they were excited to spot a "water-snow line" surrounding it because snow plays a vital part in the formation of planets.
It is believed that the presence of a snow line around stars forms dust grains - the first step in planet formation.
The rocky section forms planets like Earth and Mars, while the snowy outskirts sprout gaseous worlds like Jupiter and Saturn
Usually a young stars are surrounded by a disk of dust and gas.
But the star known as V883 Orionis, found 1,350 light-years from Earth in the constellation Orion, burns quite a bit hotter than usual, which pushed the vaporised ice all the way out to the average distance at which Pluto orbits the sun, catching researchers by surprise.
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Lead Professor Lucas Cieza said: "The ALMA observations came as a surprise to us.
"Our observations were designed to look for disc fragmentation leading to planet formation. We saw none of that; instead, we found what looks like a ring at 40 au.
“We saw none of that as the disk is probably too warm to fragment despite its very large mass. Instead, we found what looks like a ring at 40 astronomical units.”
Zhaohuan Zhu, an astronomer at Princeton University, added: "The distribution of water ice around a young star is fundamental to planet formation and even the development of life on Earth.
“ALMA’s observation sheds important light on how and where this happens in protoplanetary disks when young planets are still forming.
“Since water ice is more abundant than dust itself beyond the snow line, planets can aggregate more solid material and form bigger and faster there. In this way, giant planets like Jupiter and Saturn can form before the protoplanetary disk is gone.”