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Astronomers detect ancient lonely quasars with murky origins

The quasars appear to have few cosmic neighbors, raising questions about how they first emerged more than 13 billion years ago.

This image, taken by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, shows an ancient quasar (circled in red) with fewer than expected neighboring galaxies (bright spheres), challenging physicists’ understanding of how the first quasars and supermassive black holes formed.
This image, taken by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, shows an ancient quasar (circled in red) with fewer than expected neighboring galaxies (bright spheres), challenging physicists’ understanding of how the first quasars and supermassive black holes formed.
Credit: Christina Eilers/EIGER team
Thursday, October 17, 2024
By Jennifer Chu | MIT News