00:00You know, oceans cover around 70% of Earth's surface, and we have only explored 5-20% of them.
00:08And now, astronomers have found more water, a huge stash, floating out there in space by a quasar that's more than 12 billion light-years away.
00:17And we aren't talking about just a little puddle.
00:20It's a mind-blowing amount of water, about 140 trillion times more than all the water in Earth's oceans combined.
00:28It's hanging around a supermassive black hole that's a staggering 20 billion times bigger than our sun.
00:35This black hole is surrounded by a super-bright quasar.
00:38It gives off as much energy as you get if you gathered a thousand trillion suns.
00:43I can't count that high.
00:45Oh, by the way, since light takes time to reach us, we're seeing this quasar as it was when the universe was still very young.
00:53Astronomers are sure that the newly discovered water reservoir is the farthest and biggest we have ever found in space.
01:01Mark Bradford from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory explains that the environment of this quasar is so unique that it's capable of creating an incredible amount of water.
01:12Bradford's team, along with another group of astronomers, has been studying the quasar and the supermassive black hole at its center for quite some time.
01:20They've noticed that as the black hole pulls in surrounding matter, it heats up the nearby gas and dust.
01:27This process has created a region packed with molecules that have never been observed at such a great distance before.
01:35Now, quasars were first spotted around 50 years ago, when telescopes picked up super-bright objects way out in space.
01:42They're not regular stars.
01:44They shine from the centers of distant galaxies and are so powerful, they outshine all the stars in their galaxy combined.
01:52At the heart of every quasar is a gigantic black hole, which is millions or even billions of times heavier than the sun.
01:59When gas and dust swirl toward the black hole, they heat up and release an insane amount of energy.
02:06It makes quasars some of the brightest and most powerful things we've ever seen in space.
02:11Looking at quasars is like looking back in time.
02:15The light we see from them today has been traveling for billions of years.
02:19It gives scientists a peek at what the universe looked like way back in the past.
02:24Quasars can help us understand how galaxies formed, how matter spread out, and how the first cosmic structures came together.
02:32Some quasars shoot out massive jets of super-fast particles.
02:36Stretching across space, they can sometimes change entire regions of the universe.
02:42But let's get back to that space water, or rather, water vapor.
02:47When astronomers discovered it, it was floating around the quasar, spread across a huge area hundreds of light-years wide.
02:54For comparison, just one light-year is about 6 trillion miles.
02:58Even though the gas there is incredibly thin, unlike what we're used to on Earth,
03:03it's much warmer and denser than the gas found in most other galaxies, including our own Milky Way.
03:09The temperature of this gas is around minus 63 degrees Fahrenheit.
03:14And it's about 300 trillion times less dense than Earth's atmosphere.
03:19It does sound extreme.
03:20Even in space terms, it's unusual.
03:23Now, water vapor isn't just another molecule.
03:27The very fact that it exists near the quasar hints that the area is regularly blasted with radiation.
03:34That's what keeps the gas warmer than usual.
03:36To add to the mystery, astronomers also found carbon monoxide and other molecules.
03:43In other words, there's plenty of raw material floating around.
03:46In the future, this gas could help the supermassive black hole grow even bigger, up to six times its current size.
03:53But that's just one of many potential scenarios.
03:57Some of the gas might get pulled into the black hole, some could form new stars, and some might even get flung out into space.
04:05Now, finding water vapor in such a distant quasar means that the basic building blocks of the universe have been around for billions of years.
04:14Water is crucial for life as we know it.
04:17So its presence so long ago hints that the ingredients for life existed much earlier than we might have thought.
04:24But water isn't just important for life.
04:27It also plays a key role in how stars and galaxies form.
04:31When giant clouds of gas cool down, water helps them collapse, making it easier for new stars to be born.
04:39But how did researchers even spot this massive cloud of water?
04:43In 2008, Bradford's team started looking for water in space with the help of a special instrument called Z-Spec.
04:51It was attached to a 33-foot telescope in Hawaii.
04:55To double-check their findings, they used another powerful tool, CARMA.
05:00That's a group of radio dishes in the mountains of Southern California.
05:04At the same time, a different team was searching for water using a telescope in the French Alps.
05:09In 2010, the second team found a small hint of water in the distant quasar.
05:15It was just one teeny-tiny signal.
05:17After that, Bradford's group detected more signals.
05:21It was all the proof we needed to conclude that an enormous amount of water was actually out there.
05:27Now, our floating cloud of water vapor isn't the only place where we've found water beyond Earth.
05:33Scientists have recently made a huge discovery.
05:36It turns out there are massive reserves of liquid water hidden deep underground on Mars.
05:42So, in theory, future astronauts could use this water to support missions or even make Mars a long-term home.
05:49But, of course, there's a catch.
05:52This water isn't sitting in nice, accessible lakes or oceans.
05:55It's buried so deep inside Mars that we have no way of reaching it with current technology.
06:02Scientists have figured this out by analyzing seismic data from the Mars InSight lander.
06:07It picked up some strange seismic activity.
06:10And the best way to explain it is by these hidden water reservoirs.
06:14Mars still does have some water today, mostly as ice on or just beneath the surface.
06:20But that's nothing compared to the massive amounts of water the planet had billions of years ago.
06:26The big mystery is, where did all that water go?
06:30Scientists think it could have either escaped into space or moved into the planet's interior,
06:35where it might now be trapped as liquid reservoirs or ice deposits.
06:39The problem? We have no way of measuring how much water Mars lost.
06:44So, for now, that question remains unanswered.
06:48Earth's moon has water too, but not in the way you might think.
06:52Instead of lakes or rivers, the moon's water is mostly frozen ice, spread out unevenly across the surface.
06:59The cold, shadowed poles are especially full of it, since they never get sunlight.
07:04A lot of this ice is also mixed in with lunar soil and buried deep underground,
07:08making it super tricky to get to.
07:11Then, there's Enceladus, one of Saturn's moons.
07:15It's tiny, just 314 miles across.
07:19It's small enough to fit inside Arizona.
07:21Hmm, I think we should try that.
07:23Anyway, when NASA's Cassini space probe arrived at Saturn,
07:28scientists expected Enceladus to be a barren, frozen world.
07:31But instead, they saw huge plumes of icy particles and water vapor erupting from geysers near the South Pole.
07:39That meant there had to be a massive ocean hiding beneath its icy shell,
07:44sandwiched between the moon's rocky core and the frozen surface.
07:48The fact that this ocean is active and constantly sending material into space
07:52makes Enceladus a top candidate for future exploration.
07:57We also have Europa, one of Jupiter's moons,
08:00and one of the most promising places to search for alien life.
08:04Europa has a gigantic saltwater ocean that could be 40 to 100 miles deep.
08:10This means it might hold more water than all of Earth's oceans combined.
08:15But there's a big obstacle.
08:17This ocean is hidden under a thick ice shell,
08:20which scientists think is 10 to 20 miles deep.
08:24Europa's ocean stays liquid because of tidal forces from Jupiter's gravity.
08:28The planet's massive pull stretches and squeezes the moon,
08:32creating friction, which heats up the interior,
08:35stopping the ocean from freezing solid.
08:37And the most exciting part is that scientists think water plumes
08:41might be erupting from cracks in Europa's ice,
08:45shooting ocean water into space.
08:47Now, if that's true, we could potentially sample the ocean
08:50without having to drill through miles of ice.
08:54But there are still a lot of unknowns.
08:57How big are Europa's water reservoirs?
09:00How quickly do they refreeze?
09:02And how does the intense temperature and pressure affect the ice?
09:05Scientists are eager to figure this out because Europa's ocean is one of the best bets we have
09:11for finding extraterrestrial microbes somewhere in our solar system.
09:17Guess what?
09:18A huge ocean might be hidden deep beneath us,
09:21about 250 to 400 miles down.
09:24And it's bigger than any ocean on Earth's surface.
09:28Scientists were listening to earthquakes deep within our planet
09:31and noticed how these shakes slowed down when passing through certain parts of the mantle.
09:37This suggested that water was there.
09:39Models and experiments led them to uncover the underground ocean.
09:43But this ocean isn't like the typical water you imagine.
09:47It's a lot crazier.
09:49The mantle is a thick layer between the Earth's crust and core.
09:53It consists of the upper mantle, the lower mantle,
09:57and a mysterious layer between them called the transition zone.
10:01In the upper layer, we can often find a fascinating material called olivine,
10:07which got its name from a pretty greenish color.
10:10Olivine doesn't care about high temperatures and thrives in lava comfortably.
10:15It not only thrives, but it even makes up 50% of the entire upper mantle.
10:20We can find this stuff on Earth thanks to volcanoes.
10:24When volcanoes spew their magma out,
10:27all the minerals in it make their way to the surface.
10:29As magma cools and solidifies, it forms igneous...
10:33That's it for today.
10:34So hey, if you pacified your curiosity,
10:37then give the video a like and share it with your friends.
10:39Or if you want more, just click on these videos and stay on the bright side!
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