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by lmm 4026 days ago
No we can't. If it's not molecules, it's not water, and there's nothing here to indicate whether the hydrogen and oxygen are found bound together.
1 comments

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water#In_the_universe

While water will break down at high temperatures I would find it surprising that 1st and 3rd most common elements in the whole universe, that readily combine to form water would not result in substantial amounts of water.

It's probably like saying we shouldn't find H2 because "nothing says they are found bound together"

Actually the abundance of water was detected in some young sun-like stars:

http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2011-06/herschel-sp...

Most atoms- and certainly most hydrogen- are in stars, no? Not exactly places where water "breaking down at high temperatures" (really, never forming) can be ignored.
Most hydrogen (and baryonic mass in the universe) is in the interstellar/intergalactic gas clouds
Yes, I guess not even H2 is much stable in stars.

I would expect that in planet formation situations

It looks like most stars are too hot for molecular hydrogen, but some stars have a bit -- our own sun has some molecular hydrogen in sunspots:

http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2013/mar/13/cold-hy...

Still can't conclude it from just the data presented here.
You have to explain more than that
You provided a conjecture based on incomplete data as fact, he stated that it's conjecture until additional data to support it is there... the burden in this situation is not on him.
> You provided a conjecture based on incomplete data as fact,

No, I never said it is a fact, it is, as you pointed, a conjecture, and I provided a source (ok, wikipedia) for the amount of water in the universe

If you or him knows of a reason for why the most common elements in the universe that combine easily wouldn't result in an abundance of their combination I'm all ears.

(Which doesn't mean the amount of water is going to be near the amount of H2 or just the amount of Hydrogen present in the stars)

Yeah, I was a bit out of line there, sorry. It is pretty common knowledge that H and O combine easily.