The largest body of water has been discovered in a quasar, one of the brightest and most active objects in space. The mass of water vapor in it exceeds 140 trillion times the total volume of water in the world’s oceans.
The light from this quasar took 12 billion years to reach Earth, indicating a period when the universe was only 1.6 billion years old. Scientists, including Matt Bradford of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, note that the quasar’s surroundings are unique because of its enormous mass of water, providing new evidence that liquid is common in space.
Quasars are powered by huge black holes that consume surrounding gas and dust while emitting enormous amounts of energy. The water in it is distributed around the black hole hundreds of light years away, indicating a very warm and dense gaseous environment.
This discovery highlights the importance of observations in the millimeter and submillimeter wavelengths. In light of the rapid development of astronomy, scientists are planning to build CCAT, a 25-meter telescope in the Atacama Desert in Chile, which will unlock the potential of such research and discover the oldest galaxies in the Universe.
