In “Planet-forming disk could create thousands of oceans” (TG Daily October 21, 2011), Kate Taylor reports,
Astronomers have discovered an embryonic solar system surrounded by a cloud of water vapor that could eventually form comets and deliver oceans to dry worlds.
The star TW Hydrae, 176 light years away in the constellation Hydra, is surrounded by enough water to fill Earth’s oceans thousands of times over.
Which means:
“This tells us that the key materials that life needs are present in a system before planets are born,” says University of Michigan astronomy professor Ted Bergin, a HIFI co-investigator.
One wonders: If many phenomena like this turn up, but life is not detected, would that set of circumstances be taken to mean anything?