12-billion-year-old cosmic water reservoir uncovered in space
The oldest reservoir in the Universe is located in a quasar (Photo: NASA)
Scientists from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have discovered the largest reservoir of water in the Universe. This water body is located at a distance of 30 billion trillion miles from Earth, according to the British website UNILAD.
In a quasar, one of the brightest and most active objects in space, the largest reservoir of water has been discovered. 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 reached Earth 12 billion years ago, indicating a period when the Universe was only 1.6 billion years old. Scientists, including Matt Bradford from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, emphasize the uniqueness of the quasar's environment due to its enormous mass of water, providing new evidence of the prevalence of liquid in space.
Quasars feed on supermassive black holes that absorb surrounding gas and dust, emitting tremendous amounts of energy. The water in it is distributed around the black hole at distances of hundreds of light-years, indicating an exceptionally 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 plan to construct the CCAT, a 25-meter telescope in Chile's Atacama Desert, which will unlock the potential for such research and reveal the oldest galaxies in the Universe.
Recall that the James Webb Space Telescope found the oldest black hole in the Universe.
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