  We cast the problem of illuminating an object in a noisy environment into a
communication protocol. A probe is sent into the environment, and the presence
or absence of the object constitutes a signal encoded on the probe. The probe
is then measured to decode the signal. We calculate the Holevo information and
bounds to the accessible information between the encoded and received signal
with two different Gaussian probes---an Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) state and
a coherent state. We also evaluate the Gaussian discord consumed during the
encoding process with the EPR probe. We find that the Holevo quantum advantage,
defined as the difference between the Holevo information obtained from the EPR
and coherent state probes, is approximately equal to the discord consumed.
These quantities become exact in the typical illumination regime of low object
reflectivity and low probe energy. Hence we show that discord is the resource
responsible for the quantum advantage in Gaussian quantum illumination.
