Scientists have made an incredible discovery: they found a ginormous amount of water in a black hole 12 billion light-years away.
An ocean in the heart of a black hole! How much water are we talking about? Well, it’s so much that if you took all the water from Earth’s oceans and multiplied it by 140 trillion, you’d get close.
But wait, what’s a black hole? Picture it like a cosmic vacuum cleaner sucking in everything nearby, even light.
This black hole, called a quasar, is not just any black hole; it’s like a supermassive one munching on gas and dust and spewing out tons of energy.
According to NASA scientist Matt Bradford, who was involved in the discovery, the water feeds the quasar.
“The environment around this quasar is very unique in that it’s producing this huge mass of water,” Bradford wrote in a statement. “It’s another demonstration that water is pervasive throughout the universe, even at the very earliest times.”
Now, why is this discovery a big deal?
Well, according to NASA, astronomers had expected to find water vapor present in the distant universe, however, it has not been detected at this range before.
It’s like finding a drop of water in the middle of a desert, but on a galactic scale.
And this water isn’t just sitting there; it’s swirling around the black hole, creating a sort of cosmic steam bath. And there’s 140 trillion times the amount of water in all of the world’s oceans.
We’d put that into context, but it’s impossible to do. That’s how much water is there.
But how did they find it? Scientists used fancy telescopes and instruments like the Z-Spec and the Plateau de Bure Interferometer to peek into space.
They studied a quasar called APM 08279+5255, which sounds like a mouthful, but it’s your basic giant black hole 20 billion times bigger than the Sun with as much energy as a thousand trillion suns.
This discovery, though, isn’t just about the water. It’s about getting closer to understanding how the universe works, and finding a missing puzzle piece that helps us understand the big picture a little bit better.
If you thought that was interesting, you might like to read a story that reveals Earth’s priciest precious metal isn’t gold or platinum and costs over $10,000 an ounce!