This discovery suggests that much of the water in our own solar system could have come from billions-of-years-old ices, the researchers said. 

“Our detection indisputably demonstrates that the water seen in this planet-forming disk must be older than the central star and formed at the earliest stages of star and planet formation,” said Margot Leemker, lead author of the research at the University of Milan, in a statement. “This presents a major breakthrough in understanding … how this water made its way to our solar system, and possibly Earth, through similar processes.”

If water is hardy enough to survive every stage of star and planet development, then the ingredients for life aren’t just created by stars but can be inherited from the cold stretches of space between them. The implications could connect water — and, by extension, the potential for life — across the cosmos. The new study appears in the journal Nature Astronomy.