An international team of astronomers has found a giant cloud of water vapor near a distant quasar. It appeared when the universe was about 1.6 billion years old. This is the largest amount of water found in space, writes Daily Galaxy.

Astronomers have discovered a huge reservoir of water vapor around the quasar APM 08279+5255.

It is located at a distance of more than 12 billion light-years from us.

There is so much water there that it is 140 trillion times more than in all the oceans of the Earth combined.

This is the largest known accumulation of water in the universe.
Previously, scientists thought that so much water could only appear in the late stages of the development of the universe.
But this discovery shows that water existed in space very early, when the universe was still “young”.
This means that water was widespread and much earlier than we thought.

What is a quasar
A quasar is a very bright core of a galaxy. In its center there is a huge black hole that attracts and absorbs surrounding matter.
When this matter falls into the hole, it heats up and begins to glow, forming a bright disk around it.
Because of this, quasars are visible even at great distances – they are some of the brightest objects in the Universe.
Earlier, SPEKA wrote that astronomers have found conditions for life outside the Milky Way for the first time. Ethanol, acetaldehyde, methyl formate and acetic acid were found in a neighboring galaxy.