Astronomers Find Largest Known Extraterrestrial Water Reserve 183
gerddie writes "Two teams of astronomers have discovered the largest and farthest reservoir of water ever detected in the universe. The water, equivalent to 140 trillion times all the water in the world's ocean, surrounds a huge, feeding black hole, called a quasar, more than 12 billion light-years away.
One team, lead by Matt Bradford, made their observations starting in 2008, using an instrument called 'Z-Spec' at the California Institute of Technology's Submillimeter Observatory, a 33-foot (10-meter) telescope near the summit of Mauna Kea in Hawaii. Follow-up observations were made with the Combined Array for Research in Millimeter-Wave Astronomy (CARMA), an array of radio dishes in the Inyo Mountains of Southern California. The second group led, by Dariusz Lisused, used the Plateau de Bure Interferometer in the French Alps to find water. In 2010, this team serendipitously detected water in APM 8279+5255, observing one spectral signature. Bradford's team was able to get more information about the water, including its enormous mass, because they detected several spectral signatures of the water."
Re:At last (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:So what? (Score:5, Insightful)
We eat food because we're animals. We seek knowledge because we're humans.
Re:Giant Space Ocean? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not so much an "ocean"; the water is in the form of vapor, not liquid. It doesn't even look like a cloud, which is condensed water droplets. The density is most likely lower than the best vacuum we've ever pulled on earth. It's a lot of water, but a LOT of space.