Scientists from the University of Portsmouth have discovered that water was already present in the Universe 100–200 million years after the Big Bang.

The discovery means habitable planets could have started forming much earlier — before the first galaxies formed and billions of years earlier than was previously thought.

The study was led by astrophysicist Dr Daniel Whalen from the University of Portsmouth’s Institute of Cosmology and Gravitation. It is published today (3 March 2025) in Nature Astronomy.