Astronomers Detect 140 Trillion-Ocean Water Reservoir 12 Billion Light-Years Away
Updated
Updated · The Brighter Side of News · Jun 2
Astronomers Detect 140 Trillion-Ocean Water Reservoir 12 Billion Light-Years Away
3 articles · Updated · The Brighter Side of News · Jun 2
Summary
APM 08279+5255 is surrounded by the most distant and largest known water reservoir, with vapor equal to about 140 trillion times Earth’s ocean volume.
The reservoir sits in a violent region around a supermassive black hole about 20 billion times the sun’s mass, where intense infrared and X-ray radiation appears to energize the water molecules.
Spectral observations from Z-Spec, CARMA and the Plateau de Bure Interferometer showed the vapor spans gas over hundreds of light-years and totals at least 25,000 solar masses of water.
Those measurements suggest the quasar is reshaping a molecular gas reservoir of roughly 100 billion solar masses, feeding black-hole growth while also influencing star formation and gas outflows.
The finding pushes confirmed water chemistry back into the early universe, showing water was already abundant in one of the cosmos’s most extreme environments more than 12 billion years ago.
How does a black hole's water supply, 140 trillion times our oceans, challenge theories of early galaxy formation?
An ancient water cloud 140 trillion times Earth's oceans existed. What might this cosmic reservoir look like today?
If the early cosmos was filled with water, why is a planet like Earth considered so exceptionally rare?
The Largest Water Reservoir in the Early Universe: Discovery of 140 Trillion Ocean Equivalents Around a Distant Quasar
Overview
A groundbreaking discovery revealed the largest and most distant reservoir of water ever detected, found as an immense body of water vapor surrounding a feeding black hole, or quasar, over 12 billion light-years from Earth. This finding pushed the study of water much farther back in cosmic time and showed that water was abundant even in the universe's infancy. The research, which began in 2008, involved teams led by Matt Bradford and Dariusz Lis, whose combined efforts significantly advanced our understanding of the early universe and the role of water in its evolution.