Cosmic water giant around distant quasar reveals early-universe chemistry

Astronomers detected a giant reservoir of water around quasar APM 08279+5255, a supermassive black hole about 12 billion light-years away. The water vapor equals roughly 140 trillion times Earth’s oceans in volume, exists in hot, dense gas around the quasar (heated by intense infrared and X-ray radiation) and sits within a total gas reservoir of about 100 billion solar masses, with the water vapor itself weighing at least 25,000 solar masses. The surrounding gas is around −63°F (−52°C) and 10–100 times denser than typical galactic gas. This finding shows water was already widespread in the early universe and provides a new probe of black-hole influence on its environment; the study appears in Astrophysical Journal Letters.