The trail of water and the delivery of volatiles to habitable planets

Water is fundamental to our understanding of the formation of planets and the delivery of volatiles to their surfaces. Yet, we currently have no facilities capable of comprehensively observing it. A cold, space-based observatory operating at 25-600 micron is needed to address fundamental questions about the origin of planets and their water.

[1]  J. Najita,et al.  Water and OH Emission from the Inner Disk of a Herbig Ae/Be Star , 2018, The Astrophysical Journal.