It is a dizzying discovery that could well rewrite our understanding of the universe. NASA has just identified a gigantic water tank, over 12 billion years old.
This “cosmic sea”, identified around a distant quasar, contains 140,000 billion times more water than all the oceans of the land together. A revelation which confirms that the water is much more present in the cosmos than what we thought so far.
A 12 billion year old quasar hides a water tank without equivalent
It all starts with APM 08279+5255, a extremely bright quasar Located at more than 12 billion light years. In its center, a Supermassive black holetwenty billion times more massive than our sun, engulfs everything around it. Around him, scientists discovered a Unpublished amount of waterin the form of hot steamequivalent to 140,000 billion land oceans.
This figure seems unreal, but it is indeed real. At a time when the universe was still young, water was already flowing abundantly in certain extreme environments. This sea of cosmic water calls into question our certainties: Water is not a privilege of inhabited planetsshe is a Fundamental element of the cosmos.
Another surprise: this water vapor displays a temperature of -63 °Cmuch higher than the cosmic average. She spreads out on Hundreds of light yearsbathed in a very dense environment. These exceptional conditions testify to an extremely active galactic environment, fueled by the energy of the Quasar.
The Quasar environment reveals how water is formed and circulates in the universe
The intense radiation emitted by the Quasar excites the material around the black hole. This allows astronomers to study in detail the gas structurein temperaturein density and its chemical composition. Thanks to these observations, researchers learn how Water is formed in extreme environments And how it evolves over time.
This gigantic cloud of water acts as a natural archiverecording the physical conditions of a very young universe. The collected data suggest that the water does not appear late in the star training cycle, but From the first phases of galactic evolution. An index more than water is not a rarity, but a universal constant.
This discovery strengthens the hypothesis of a general presence of water, and therefore of life
This is not an isolated case. Astronomers have already detected water in many environments: in the comets, Around young stars, in planetary training discsand even in the atmosphere of exoplanets Like K2-18B. The discovery of such a massive and old tank validates a central idea: Water is everywhere.
If the water is so widespread, then life, in one form or another, could be too. The universe would not only be dusty and cold, but wet. This distant quasar has murmured it for 12 billion years.