H2O maser emission has been detected in the Circinus galaxy from within 10–15 arcsec of its nucleus. It consists of several faint broad bands between the heliocentric velocities of 500 and 630 km s–1, on which are superimposed several narrow |(~ \,1\,km s⁻¹)| features with peak intensities as high as 12Jy. The three brightest narrow-band features have a symmetry in velocity differences which suggests the presence of maser emission from a narrow shell expanding at a velocity of 27.5 km s–1. For a distance of 4 Mpc the luminosity is 37 L⊙. This galaxy is the second found to have nuclear H2O emission with a luminosity at least an order of magnitude greater than any known H2O source in our Galaxy.
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Gardner et al. (1982) studied this question.