Ancient Water Found Floating In Deep Space
As humankind is entering a new era of space exploration, scientists have recently revealed that there is a giant reservoir of water that is slowly seeping into a massive black hole in the far reaches of the universe. Two separate teams of astronomers have confirmed that quasar APM 08279+5255 is surrounded by water vapor that is billions of years old.
This discovery helps promote the theory that water has existed in our universe since its earliest stages of development and gives researchers several different theories regarding how the black hole will react to its consumption of water.
Water That’s Millions Of Years Old
This discovery helps promote the theory that water has existed in our universe since its earliest stages of development and gives researchers several different theories regarding how the black hole will react to its consumption of water.
Black holes are the remnants of stars that grew so massive that they exploded into space, leaving behind their burnt-out cores. The cores collapse on themselves and create a mass that is so dense that their gravitational pulls make it impossible for any substance to escape from them. A black hole will suck in anything that drifts too close, not even allowing light to leave its clutches.
An Awe-Inspiring Amount Of Water
The water that has recently been observed in the black hole that sits 12 billion light years away has a mass that is equally impressive. The space reservoir contains more than 140 trillion times the total water on the Earth. Astronomers are able to observe how this water slowly feeds the black hole it surrounds.
The Largest Amount Of Water Ever Observed
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientist Matt Bradford was a member of one of the two teams of astronomers that discovered the ancient cache of space water. He noted that this particular black hole is more than 20 billion times more massive than the Sun and is producing more energy than a thousand trillion suns. While it’s been known for some time that water exists all over the universe, this is the first time it’s been observed to be in vapor form in this quantity.
The Milky Way Contains Water
The Milky Way has a sizable amount of water floating around in it, but in an amount that is more than 4,000 times less than the space water being fed into the recently discovered black hole. Additionally, the water observed in this galaxy is in ice form.
Astronomers have speculated that there is enough water vapor surrounding the black hole to cause this dense form to grow to more than six times its current size. But it’s possible that some of the water that’s orbiting into this space giant could be eventually condensed into stars or even propelled far into space away from the black hole itself.
The Origin Of Water
Bradford’s team began making the space water observations as far back as 2008. At the California Institute of Technology’s Submillimeter Observatory, his team used a 33-foot telescope and a cryogenic broadband millimeter-wave grating spectrometer called a Z-Spec to lead to its discoveries.
For now, astronomers continue to observe this phenomenon. Hundreds of light years across in size, the space water, and how the black hole reacts to it have led to changes in thought regarding the origin of water in the universe and whether or not quasars have developed this vital resource.
Sources: NASA
