Quasars
For the First Time, Astronomers Spot Stars in Galaxies that Existed Just 1 Billion Years After the Big Bang
Using data from the JWST, an international team of astronomers have made the first observations of stars in quasars that…
Quasars Produce Giant Jets That Focus Like Lasers. Why They Focus is Still a Mystery, but it’s not Coming From the Galaxy Itself
New technologies bring new astronomical insights, which is especially satisfying when they help answer debates that have been ongoing for…
Webb Sees a Cluster of Galaxies Feeding a Quasar
There's a galaxy protocluster out there in the distant universe that's waving some tantalizing clues about cosmic history at astronomers.…
Gravity Really Tangled up the Light From a Distant Quasar
Way back in 1979, astronomers spotted two nearly identical quasars that seemed close to each other in the sky. These…
Supermassive Black Holes Formed Directly out of Enormous Streams of Cold gas
New research shows that distant quasars were born in the cold dark of turbulent gas.
Most Black Holes Spin Rapidly. This one… Doesn’t
A Chandra X-ray Observatory view of the supermassive black hole at the heart of quasar H1821+643. Courtesy NASA/CXC/Univ. of Cambridge/J.…
Astronomers see a Rare “Double Quasar” in a Pair of Merging Galaxies
What's better than a quasar? That's right, two quasars. Astronomers have spotted for the first time two rare double-quasars, and…
Gaia Finds 12 Examples of Einstein Crosses; Galaxies Being Gravitationally Lensed so we see Them Repeated 4 Times
After examining data from the Gaia Observatory, a team of researchers found 12 more examples of the rare phenomenon known…
A New Technique to Find Cold Gas Streams That Might Make up the Missing (Normal) Matter in the Universe
Where is all the missing matter? That question has plagued astronomers for decades, because the Universe looks emptier than it…
Astronomers are Starting to Understand the Quasar Lifecycle
Supermassive black holes have a complicated lifecycle. Sometimes they're "on", blasting out tremendous amounts of energy, and sometimes they're "off',…