Friday 22 July 2011

Massive water reservoir found at edge of universe


Caltech astronomers announced Friday the discovery of a massive reservoir of water 100,000 times larger than the sun that contains 140 trillion times more water than all the water in the world's oceans combined.
The source exists in a quasar at the edge of the universe, officials said.
The discovery was made by "looking from a distance of 30 billion trillion miles away into a quasar-one of the brightest and most violent objects in the cosmos," a statement issued by a Caltech spokeswoman said.
"Because the quasar is so far away, its light has taken 12 billion years to reach Earth," the statement from Deborah Williams-Hedges noted.
A Jet Propulsion Laboratory astronomer described the finding in a paper set to be published later this year.
"The environment around this quasar is unique in that it's producing this huge mass of water," says Matt Bradford, a JPL scientist and visiting associate at Caltech. "It's another demonstration that water is pervasive throughout the universe, even at the very earliest times."
Bradford leads one of two international teams of astronomers that have described their quasar findings in separate papers that have been accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.


Source: pasadenastarnews.com

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