Water in star-forming regions with Herschel

The Herschel Space Observatory is well suited to address several important questions in star‐ and planet formation, as is evident from its first year of operation. This paper focuses on observations of water, a key molecule in the physics and chemistry of star‐formation. In the WISH Key Program, a comprehensive set of water lines is being obtained with the HIFI and PACS instruments toward a large sample of well‐characterized protostars, covering a wide range of luminosities and evolutionary stages. Lines of H2O, CO and their isotopologues, as well as chemically related hydrides, [O I] and [C II] are observed. Together, the data determine the abundance of water in cold and warm gas, reveal the entire CO ladder up to 4000 K above ground, elucidate the physical processes responsible for the warm gas (passive heating, UV or X‐ray‐heating, shocks), quantify the main cooling agents, and probe dynamical processes associated with forming stars and planets (© 2011 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)