There’s water in Universe!
Two teams of astronomers have discovered the largest and farthest reservoir of water ever detected in the universe. The water, equivalent to 140 trillion times all the water in the world’s ocean, surrounds a huge, feeding black hole. This black hole, called a quasar, is more than 12 billion light-years away.
The discovery shows that water has been prevalent in the universe for nearly its entire existence, researchers said.
Quasars are the most luminous, most powerful and most energetic objects in the universe. They are powered by enormous black holes that suck in surrounding gas and dust and spew out huge amounts of energy.
The astronomers used two different telescopes, one in Hawaii and one in California, to detect and confirm the water vapor surrounding the quasar.
Water vapor is an important trace gas that reveals the nature of the quasar. In this particular quasar, the water vapor is distributed around the black hole in a gaseous region spanning hundreds of light-years in size (a light-year is about six trillion miles).
Fun fact
Black holes formed by the collapse of individual stars are relatively small, but incredibly dense. This leads to a crazy amount of gravitational force around the black hole.
Fun Fact
Black holes formed by the collapse of individual stars are relatively small, but incredibly dense. This leads to a crazy amount of gravitational force around the black hole.
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