APM 08279+5255: The Lensed Quasar, a Monster Black Hole, and the Universe’s Water Reservoir cover art

APM 08279+5255: The Lensed Quasar, a Monster Black Hole, and the Universe’s Water Reservoir

APM 08279+5255: The Lensed Quasar, a Monster Black Hole, and the Universe’s Water Reservoir

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 We dive into APM 08279+5255, a gravitationally lensed quasar from the universe’s youth. Learn how a foreground galaxy magnifies its light by about four times (not the initial 40–90x) thanks to Hubble imaging that revealed three distinct images. Meet a supermassive black hole of roughly 10–23 billion solar masses tucked in a massive, infrared-luminous galaxy, seen almost face-on. And hear about the universe’s largest single mass of water detected so far—about 100 trillion times Earth’s oceans—existing when the cosmos was just 1.6 billion years old. What these details tell us about early chemistry, cosmic dust, and the potential for complex molecules long before our time.


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