THERE’S water, water, everywhere in the cosmos, but how it comes about in the interstellar clouds that give birth to stars, planets and even life is a bit of a mystery. The answer, it seems, may lie on the surface of frosty dust grains.
When hydrogen and oxygen exist as gases water forms easily, but models of interstellar clouds suggest that this route is unlikely to produce the abundance of water seen in them. Most of the water we see has formed icy sheaths around tiny grains of dust in the clouds, and it is believed oxygen atoms accumulate on…
