12-Billion-Year-Old Body Of Water Discovered Floating In Space

The largest known body of water in the cosmos is surprisingly 12 billion years old, according to scientific findings.

NASA

The largest and farthest water reservoir ever found in the universe has been found by two astronomy teams.

The body of water is noticeably larger than the total amount of water on Earth. Furthermore, the experts estimate that it is 140 trillion times larger than all the water in the world's oceans.

However, since the body of water surrounds a massive feeding black hole known as a quasar, which is located more than 12 billion years distant, there is little likelihood that you would be able to see it with a microscope.

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Very confusing isn't it?

The scientists' investigations have shown that the universe was only 1.6 billion years old at one point.

Speaking on the discovery, Matt Bradford, a scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, stated that it demonstrated the presence of water across the cosmos.

"The environment around this quasar is unique in that it's producing this huge mass of water,” he said. "It's another demonstration that water is pervasive throughout the universe, even at the very earliest times."

Massive celestial phenomena known as quasars release a great deal of energy. Across the whole electromagnetic spectrum, supermassive black holes generate electromagnetic radiation from the falling gas and dust into their core.

APM 08279+5255, a specific quasar that has a black hole 20 billion times more massive than the sun and generates energy equivalent to a thousand trillion suns, was the subject of study for both groups of astronomers. Thus, somewhat.

By identifying multiple spectral signatures of the water, Bradford's team was able to obtain additional information about it, most notably about its enormous mass.

Astronomers had never discovered water vapor thus far back in the early universe until this discovery. 

There is more water in the Milky Way, but it's mostly covered in ice.

The study's authors suggested building a 25-meter telescope in Chile's Atacama Desert in order to further astronomers' quest to understand the far-off cosmos.

The Fred Young Submillimeter Telescope (FYST) was christened in 2020, replacing the Cerro Chajnantor Atacama Telescope (CCAT), which had been supported for nearly two decades by Cornell alumnus Fred Young, with a grant of sixteen million dollars.

But regrettably, the telescope idea has been postponed due to a lack of finance.