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Three new water masers have been discovered in the Milky Way, including what could be one of the fastest ever found -- reaching speeds of up to 350 km per second –- and a rare ‘water fountain,' a special class of ‘masers’ -– large microwave lasers caused by high-mass dying stars or high-mass star formation regions. The high mass source spews out material including clouds of water that can travel at a couple of hundred kilomers per second.
For the first time, astronomers have found a planet-forming disc around a star that is awash with frozen water. The discovery adds credence to the idea that Earth got its water from comets – especially as the disc seems to contain enough water to fill Earth's oceans thousands of times over.
Hot water vapour has previously been detected in the inner part of the planet-forming discs of nascent, alien solar systems. But this is too close to the central star to be incorporated into the forming planets.
Source
"We discovered that a comet is not really a 'dirty snowball' since dirt is dominant, not ice," said Horst Uwe Keller..."Instead of being spherical like a warm snowball, a comet nucleus is elongated. The physical structure of a comet's interior is defined by its dust content rather than its ice content."
Source -Wiki
...comet Borrelly exhibits distinct jets, yet has a hot, dry surface. The assumption that comets contain water and other ices led Dr. Laurence Soderblom of the U.S. Geological Survey to say, "The spectrum suggests that the surface is hot and dry. It is surprising that we saw no traces of water ice." However, he goes on to suggest that the ice is probably hidden below the crust as "either the surface has been dried out by solar heating and maturation or perhaps the very dark soot-like material that covers Borrelly's surface masks any trace of surface ice".
Samples of Comet Wild 2 suggest it is made of rocky material, like an asteroid, rather than the fluffy dust expected of a comet....Wild 2 should still be considered a comet, she adds, because it is throwing off gas and dust [it still has a tail] as ice on its surface evaporates in sunlight. But she says the new findings bolster the view that there is no sharp dividing line between comets and asteroids.