image: Water through time: Ices from the parent molecular cloud are incorporated into planet-forming disks around young stars. These ancient ices, including water, are available to nascent planetary systems, including our own. This picture shows the time sequence of water ice, starting in the cloud (prior to the Sun's formation), traveling through the stages of star formation, and eventually being incorporated into the planetary system itself. This material relates to a paper that appeared in the 26 Sept., issue of Science, published by AAAS. The paper, by L.I. Cleeves at University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, MI, and colleagues was titled, "The ancient heritage of water ice in the solar system." view more
Credit: [Credit: Bill Saxton, NSF/AUI/NRAO]