Daniel Whalen and colleagues utilised computer models of two supernovae — the first for a star 13 times the mass of the Sun and the second for a star 200 times — to analyse the products of these explosions.
They found that 0.051 and 55 solar masses of oxygen were created in the first and second simulation, respectively, due to the very high temperatures and densities reached. Whalen and colleagues found that, as this gaseous oxygen cooled and mixed with the surrounding hydrogen left behind by the supernovae, water was able to form in the leftover dense clumps of material. These clumps were likely to be sites for the formation of the second generation of stars and planets.
In the first simulation, the authors found that the mass of water reached quantities that were about the equivalent of one hundred millionth to one millionth of a solar mass in 30 to 90 million years following the supernova. In the second simulation, the amount of water reached roughly 0.001 solar masses after 3 million years.
The authors suggest that if water can survive the formation of the first galaxies, a potentially destructive process, it could have been incorporated into the formation of planets billions of years ago.
