Excerpt from this article.
Water is crucial for life, but how do you make water? Cooking up some H2O takes more than mixing hydrogen and oxygen. It requires the special conditions found deep within frigid molecular clouds, where dust shields against destructive ultraviolet light and aids chemical reactions. NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope will peer into these cosmic reservoirs to gain new insights into the origin and evolution of water and other key building blocks for habitable planets.Manly Warrior: About space being pretty much empty of gaseous matter... No! It's full of HUGE clouds of gas and dust (sometimes called stellar nurseries) that measure tens of light years across. Look up at the Milky Way some night and you'll see dark splotches blocking out much of the light from the more distant stars in the galaxy. Those splotches are clouds of gas and dust, and all the stars in the galaxy were born in them.A molecular cloud is an interstellar cloud of dust, gas, and a variety of molecules ranging from molecular hydrogen (H2) to complex, carbon-containing organics. Molecular clouds hold most of the water in the universe, and serve as nurseries for newborn stars and their planets.
Protoplanetary disk surrounding a young star In this animation we fly into a protoplanetary disk surrounding a young star. Within the disk, tiny dust grains accumulate layers of ice over thousands of years. These cosmic snowflakes are swept up by forming planets, delivering key ingredients for life. Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt
Within these clouds, on the surfaces of tiny dust grains, hydrogen atoms link with oxygen to form water. Carbon joins with hydrogen to make methane. Nitrogen bonds with hydrogen to create ammonia. All of these molecules stick to the surface of dust specks, accumulating icy layers over millions of years. The result is a vast collection of “snowflakes” that are swept up by infant planets, delivering materials needed for life as we know it. "If we can understand the chemical complexity of these ices in the molecular cloud, and how they evolve during the formation of a star and its planets, then we can assess whether the building blocks of life should exist in every star system," said Melissa McClure of the Universiteit van Amsterdam, the principal investigator on a research project to investigate cosmic ices.
That excerpt sounds all nice and “science”- but it is theory and not exactly proven, even if commonly accepted. As far as the “clouds” I see in the expanse of the heavens- I would think that thousands upon millions of heavenly bodies appear cloud like from distance- and from observing nearer heavenly bodies like planets and stars, my science is as valid as the “animation” that followed the excerpt of yours. I can testify that I see objects in the heavens with my small reflector or naked eyes, and that it is repeatable and testable on any given cloudless night. As far as the theories of planet factories and icy snowflakes and millions of years, all of that is “facts not in evidence” yer’ honor. Sorry, fitting tidbits of anecdotal information to a narrative does not make facts. While not a flat earth type, I am indeed a your universe guy who questions most everything the mainstream pumps out. Although the astronomy shows have really cool graphics, they are indeed, just entertainment for the most part. Golly, everything they purport is based on more belief than any other religion.
Anyways,