Herschel and ISM/star formation

Herschel should provide a fundamental boost to the star formation community from at least two points of view. One of these will be the high angular resolution in the far IR at wavelengths of around 100 microns near the peak of the SED for most young protostars. This will give images of the (relatively) hot dust and thus of the energy production in these sites which will be comparable with images of the mass distribution already available from mm-submm observations. Secondly, the distribution and kinematics of the various water lines can be expected to give us an unparalleled view of what very young protostars are up to in their infancy. Complementary information will likely be obtained from maps of the OI and CII fine structure lines.