India, May 17 -- In a historic finding, NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has confirmed that crystalline water ice exists in the debris disk surrounding HD 181327, a young star that resembles the sun.

The study, published in Nature, is the first clear-cut evidence of frozen water in an atmosphere outside of the solar system. The water ice, which is present with small dust particles, aids in the understanding of the early phases of the evolution of planetary systems. Webb's delicate instruments opened a fresh chapter in the study of planet formation by observing the detailed spectra that revealed the structure and arrangement of ice particles across the disk.

The ice that Webb discovered has a crystalline structure, which is also present...