Astronomers have identified a phenomenal water reservoir hidden in the far corner of the universe, orbiting a quasar that is more than 12 billion light-years away. That distance is so vast that the light we see today started its journey not so long after the universe itself was formed. The amount of water supply in this distant place is enormous – an amount that is about 140 trillion times as much as the total of all the oceans on Earth. This supply is sitting near a supermassive black hole that is about 20 billion times more massive than our sun. The black hole is surrounded by a quasar named APM 08279+5255, which pumps out as much energy as a thousand trillion suns. This quasar, according to astronomers, holds the farthest and largest known reservoir of water anywhere in the universe.
Quasar APM 08279+5255 and its water
Matt Bradford, a scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., leads one of the teams involved in the observations.
“This environment around this quasar is very unique in that it’s producing this huge mass of water,” said Matt Bradford. “It’s another demonstration that water is pervasive throughout the universe, even at the very earliest times.
It took both Bradford’s group as well as a separate team of astronomers to study APM 08279+5255 and its black hole -it sits at the center-and warms nearby gas and dust in space, creating an area brimming with molecules never observed that far away.
Understanding quasars — the basics
Quasars were first discovered more than half a century ago when the existence of puzzling sources of intense brightness was revealed through telescopes in distant regions of space.
These objects are unlike any ordinary star. They shine brightly from the center of distant galaxies, outshining all their galaxy’s stars combined.
At their center lie supermassive black holes, millions or billions of times heavier than our sun. As gas and dust spiral in toward one of these black holes, the swirling material heats up and releases energy.
This energy blasts out across all kinds of wavelengths, making quasars some of the brightest, most energetic phenomena ever seen.
Observing quasars helps astronomers understand what the universe looked like long ago since the light we see today began its journey billions of years ago.
Quasars can show how galaxies formed, how matter spread out, and how the earliest structures in the cosmos came together.
They can even help map the distribution of matter between galaxies, shining light on the regions that would otherwise remain unseen.
Some quasars also emit enormous jets of high-speed particles that stretch across enormous distances. These jets can influence how stars form, affecting entire neighborhoods of cosmic material.
Strange place to find water
Astronomers detected that water vapor exists in the environment of this quasar. It fills a region covering hundreds of light-years. One light-year is approximately six trillion miles.
The gas, though sparse by Earth’s standards, is surprisingly warm and dense compared to what usually exists in places like our Milky Way.
The temperature is about minus 63 degrees Fahrenheit, and the gas is about 300 trillion times less dense than Earth’s atmosphere.
However, it is five times hotter and tens to hundreds of times denser than the gas seen in normal galaxies. With its unusual conditions, this region stands out as an unexpected find.
Why does any of this matter?
Water vapor is not just a molecule. Its presence here suggests that the quasar is bathing its environment in radiation that keeps the gas relatively warm.
Other molecules, like carbon monoxide, were also spotted by astronomers, suggesting that there is an abundance of raw material that can feed the black hole as it continues to grow.
They estimate that there is enough gas for the black hole to expand to about six times its size, though what happens after that is unknown.
Some of this gas will probably go on to form new stars, while other portions might be expelled out into space. Either way, these measurements open a window to conditions when the universe was young.
Quasars, water, and life’s building blocks
Detecting water vapor in this distant quasar expands our understanding of how building blocks are seen throughout vast stretches of time and space.
Water is critical for life as we know it, so its detection billions of years ago tells us that the elements for life have been around for a very long time.
Further than that, water is pivotal in dictating the way in which stars and galaxies form. Once a gas cloud cools down, it is facilitated to collapse through the assistance of water. This can help in bringing forth star births.
Observing this so early can offer new hints by astronomers about the way galaxies evolve as the universe grows and matures with age.
How they found the water quasar
His research team started gathering their evidence in 2008 when Bradford used an instrument, Z-Spec at CSO’s that is located at California Institute of Technology.
This is one of the 33-feet telescopes at one of the summits that can be found atop Hawaii; afterward, they verified through their findings using CARMA as it is a radio telescope configuration within Southern California’s Inyo Mountain highlands.
Another group led by Dariusz Lis, a senior research associate in physics at Caltech and deputy director of the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory, used the Plateau de Bure Interferometer in the French Alps for their experiment.
Lis’s team, in 2010, discovered a hint of water in this quasar with a single signature whereas Bradford’s team discovered multiple signals which explained the amount of water found.
Where do we go from here?
Summing it all up, this discovery shows that even at a time when the universe was young, water formed and gathered in places we never would have guessed.
Instead of seeing just cold, empty darkness out there, astronomers have spotted a real treasure — an enormous reservoir of water swirling around a quasar more than 12 billion light-years away.
This water vapor, combined with the intense radiation from the black hole at the center of the quasar, paints a picture of an environment that is far denser, warmer, and more active than ordinary parts of the cosmos.
By studying this distant quasar, scientists can learn how the earliest galaxies came together and evolved. They can see how matter spread out, how black holes grew, and how even tiny molecules like water played a role in shaping the universe.
Every new detail uncovered by these long-ago signals traveling through time and space helps make sense of the vast cosmic story we are all a part of.
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Other authors on the Bradford paper, “The water vapor spectrum of APM 08279+5255,” are Hien Nguyen, Jamie Bock, Jonas Zmuidzinas and Bret Naylor of JPL; Alberto Bolatto of the University of Maryland, College Park; Phillip Maloney, Jason Glenn and Julia Kamenetzky of the University of Colorado, Boulder; James Aguirre, Roxana Lupu and Kimberly Scott of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia; Hideo Matsuhara of the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science in Japan; and Eric Murphy of the Carnegie Institute of Science, Pasadena.
The National Science Foundation, NASA, the Research Corporation and the partner institutions all contributed funds to Z-Spec.
The full study has appeared in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.
