Astronomers have discovered that a planet-birthing disk of gas and dust that surrounds an infant star is drenched with enough water to fill Earth's oceans three times over.
Water, a key element needed to form and sustain life as we know it, has always been considered to play an important role in forming planets. This is the first time that astronomers have been able to map the distribution of water in a cool, stable disk of gas, or "protoplanetary disk," that is ideal for planet formation.
