Astronomers found the largest and farthest reservoir of water ever detected in the universe, estimated to be about 12 billion years old. Although this discovery was initially made years ago, it has recently gone viral.
The Journey of Discovery
The discovery involved two dedicated teams of astronomers and it took three years of intensive research. The first team, led by Matt Bradford from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, began their observations in 2008. They used a 33-foot telescope near the summit of Mauna Kea in Hawaii to make initial observations. They then followed up with an array of radio dishes in the Inyo Mountains of Southern California.
Confirmation from the French Alps
A second team, headed by Dariusz Lis, a senior research associate in physics at Caltech and deputy director of the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory, confirmed the findings. They used the Plateau de Bure Interferometer in the French Alps for their observations.
The Vast Cosmic Reservoir
This cosmic water reservoir is no small body of water. It contains almost 140 trillion times the water found in all of Earth’s oceans. Positioned more than 12 billion light-years away, the water surrounds a massive, feeding black hole known as a quasar. Quasars are enormous celestial objects that emit vast amounts of energy.
Water in the Early Universe
Bradford pointed out how special the quasar’s environment is, showing that water is found all over the universe, even in its earliest times. Before this discovery, astronomers had never found water vapour this far back in the universe’s history. While there is water in the Milky Way, most of it is frozen.
Unusual Warmth and Density
The water surrounding the quasar shows that it’s soaking the gas with X-rays and infrared radiation, which makes it much warmer and denser than what’s usual in space. Even though the gas is extremely cold at minus 63 degrees Fahrenheit and much less dense than Earth’s atmosphere, it’s still five times hotter and 10 to 100 times denser than gases found in galaxies like our Milky Way.
Looking to the Future
Astronomers hope this discovery will give us more clues and this discovery will help in future studies. This amazing find has caught people’s attention again, sparking curiosity and leaving people to wonder about the vast space.