“Massive Water Reservoir Discovered Near Distant Supermassive Black Hole”

[Voice of Hope May 11, 2023](Editor: Guo Xiao) The universe is a mysterious and unknown world, and human exploration of the universe has never stopped. Previously, astronomers discovered a “huge reservoir” near a distant supermassive black hole. Its water volume is equivalent to 140 trillion times the water volume of the Earth’s oceans. 4000 times. Discovered by two teams of astronomers 12 billion light-years from Earth, the reservoir appears as water vapor dispersed over hundreds of light-years. The reservoir is located within the gas region of a quasar, a bright compact region at the core of a galaxy powered by a black hole. The discovery suggests that water may have existed throughout the universe even in the early universe.

According to astronomers, the quasar APM 08279+5255 in the constellation Orion is so far away from Earth that its light takes 12 billion years to reach Earth. Therefore, the planet we are currently observing is actually observing what it looked like when our universe was only 1.6 billion years old. But there is no way for human beings to know how much water is still on this planet, because we can only observe the data on this planet when the universe was 1.6 billion years old, because this planet is really far away from us. Too far. However, the existence of this reservoir proves once again that the element water is ubiquitous in the universe.

Water resources are not unique to the earth, not only are ubiquitous in the solar system, but also ubiquitous in the Milky Way. Even in other star systems, the element water is full of other planets, and there are likely to be waters deeper than our earth’s oceans on other planets, and there may even be life at the bottom of the oceans on other planets. Astronomer Bradley once said that water vapor also existed in the early universe, so a large amount of water was found in other planets. The discovery of this situation does not surprise scientists. However, water vapor is an important measure of gas for us to study the properties of this kind of planet. In this special type of planet, water vapor will be distributed in gaseous regions spanning hundreds of light-years.

Its existence proves that the black hole that this planet surrounds is extremely warm. That is to say, the temperature of the black hole surrounded by this “planet” is 10 to 100 times higher than that of the black hole at the center of our galaxy. The discovery of this “largest reservoir” in the universe has given us a better understanding of the size and complexity of the universe. Water is the basis of life, and its distribution and circulation in the universe is of great significance to our understanding of the origin and evolution of life in the universe. It also reminds us that there are more unknown mysteries in the universe waiting for us to explore.

Editor in charge: Li Jingrou