The Water is Where?????

Hey Space Placers!

Read and ponder this from NASA JPL:

"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."

Now look at this:

Quasar Drenched in Water Vapor

"This artist's concept illustrates a quasar, or feeding black hole, similar to APM 08279+5255, where astronomers discovered huge amounts of water vapor. Gas and dust likely form a torus around the central black hole, with clouds of charged gas above and below. X-rays emerge from the very central region, while thermal infrared radiation is emitted by dust throughout most of the torus. While this figure shows the quasar's torus approximately edge-on, the torus around APM 08279+5255 is likely positioned face-on from our point of view." Image credit: NASA/ESA


The Universe never ceases to amaze me. You have to read the whole press release: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-223
Sky Guy in VA