Astronomers have found a humongous ‘ocean’ which exceeds 140,000 million times the volume of Earth’s oceans in the universe.

Interestingly, the Quasar called APM 08279 + 5255 harbors black holes 20 billion times more massive than the sun and produces energy equivalent to a thousand TRILLION Suns. Astronomers say that the radiation emitted by APM 08279 + 5255 is 65,000 times more powerful than all the radiation from our galaxy, the Milky Way.

Did you know that a team of astronomers has located the largest and farthest reservoir of water in the known universe?

It is located around the quasar APM 08279 + 5255, and has a cosmic ocean of over 140,000 million times the total volume of all the oceans on Earth, reports the portal  RSUTE.

According to researchers, a ‘quasar’ is powered by a huge black hole that consumes a surrounding disk of gas and dust. During this process, the quasar spews out huge amounts of energy. Quasar APM 08279 + 5255 harbors black holes 20 billion times more massive than the sun and is able to produce energy equivalent to a thousand TRILLION Suns

The radiation emitted by APM 08279 + 5255 is 65,000 times more powerful than all the radiation from our galaxy, the Milky Way.

While Astronomers have expected to find traces of water vapor present in the early distant universe, the discovery of this huge distant ‘cosmic ocean’ came as a surprise. In the Milky Way, researchers have also found traces of water vapor, although the total amount of water vapor in a milky way is 4,000 less than in the quasar since the majority of it is frozen in ice.

“The environment around this quasar is unique in that it’s producing this huge mass of water,” NASA quotes Matt Bradford, a scientist at the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. “It’s another demonstration that water is pervasive throughout the universe, even at the very earliest times,” the scientist said.

According to scientists, water vapor is an extremely important has which can tell us a lot about a specific quasar. Talking about APM 08279 + 5255, scientists say that water vapor is distributed around the black hole in specific gaseous regions which span hundreds of light-years in size.

Astronomers speculate that the presence of water vapor could indicate that the quasar is, in fact, bathing the gas in X-Rays and infrared radiation. Astronomers say that the gas is unusually warm and dense by astronomical standards.

Interestingly, according to scientists, the has is at minus 53 degrees Celsius and 300 TRILLION times less dense than Earth’s atmosphere. However, it’s still five times hotter and 10 to 100 times denser than what is typical in galaxies like the Milky Way.

According to NASA, measurements of the water vapor and of other molecules, such as carbon monoxide, suggest there is enough gas to feed the black hole until it grows to about six times its size. Whether this will happen is not clear, the astronomers say since some of the gas may end up condensing into stars or might be ejected from the quasar.