Yes, the title of the article is kind of shitty, and obvious. All elements in the solar systems (except those being formed in the sun's core) are older than the sun, probably the result of the explosion of some much older stars.
But what the article is really trying to say, is that it's "normal" that our solar system has (this much) water.
> If our solar system’s formation was typical, cosmically speaking, then the findings imply that interstellar ices are in healthy supply for all up-and-coming planetary systems. And since all life we know of depends on water, that news improves the odds that other planetary systems have what it takes to support life.
> All elements in the solar systems (except those being formed in the sun's core) are older than the sun, probably the result of the explosion of some much older stars.
Don't forget those trace amounts of elements produced by our pathetic attempts at creating a fusion reactor on Earth! And all the material created by natural fission decay of fissile materials in the Earth's crust and elsewhere...
The "probably" is unnecessary. Until the sun explodes and expels the core of "new material" that it's created by fusion inside of it, ALL the non-hydrogen material in the solar system can be said to have resulted from the explosion of some much older star.
And given that our Sun is (thankfully) still in the hydrogen-burning phase of the main sequence, even if it did explode all we'd get for it is Helium.
It's actually not obvious. All elements in the solar system are older than the sun. But water is not an element, it is a molecule: two hydrogens, one oxygen. So it's not a given that the water in our solar system became water before the stellar collapse that resulted in our sun. I could also conceive of the water and oxygen combining during that collapse.
But what the article is really trying to say, is that it's "normal" that our solar system has (this much) water.
> If our solar system’s formation was typical, cosmically speaking, then the findings imply that interstellar ices are in healthy supply for all up-and-coming planetary systems. And since all life we know of depends on water, that news improves the odds that other planetary systems have what it takes to support life.