quasars

6 Stories

This Is the Fastest-Growing Black Hole Ever Discovered

'This quasar is the most violent place that we know in the universe,' says lead scientist

(Newser) - Astronomers have discovered what may be the brightest object in the universe, a quasar with a black hole at its heart growing so fast that it swallows the equivalent of a sun a day. As the AP reports, the record-breaking quasar shines 500 trillion times brighter than our sun. The...

'Cosmic Beast' in Night Sky Blows Our Black Hole Away

Oldest black hole ever discovered formed just 470M years after the Big Bang

(Newser) - Scientists have discovered the oldest black hole yet, a cosmic beast formed a mere 470 million years after the Big Bang. The findings, published Monday, confirm what until now were theories that supermassive black holes existed at the dawn of the universe, per the AP . NASA's James Webb Space...

Dark Matter's 'Cosmic Web' Spotted for 1st Time

Scientists see glue that holds universe together

(Newser) - Scientists have seen a tendril of dark matter for the first time, and all it took was a "cosmic flashlight." Using the Keck telescope in Hawaii, a scientific team spotted the dark matter in a gas cloud illuminated by the radiation of a distant quasar, the BBC reports....

Scientists Discover Brightest, Oldest Quasar

Black hole powering it was 2B more massive than the sun

(Newser) - A team of European astronomers, glimpsing back in time to when the universe was just a youngster, says it has detected the most distant and earliest quasar yet. Light from this brilliant, starlike object took nearly 13 billion years to reach Earth, meaning the quasar existed when the universe was...

Dutch Teacher Discovers Green 'Space Ghost'

Accidental find is hot gas ball reflecting far-off galactic light

(Newser) - A Dutch schoolteacher earned her moment in the sun by discovering a cosmic ball of gas some have labeled a space “ghost,” NPR reports. Hanny van Arkel, 25, was working as a volunteer with a galaxy-classifying website when she came upon what “looked like a regular galaxy...

Hidden Galaxies Come to Light
Hidden Galaxies Come to Light
Sep 24, 2007 12:15 PM CDT

Hidden Galaxies Come to Light

Scientists discover star systems obscured by quasars

(Newser) - Astronomers have added 14 “invisible galaxies” to their map of the heavens, thanks to an imaginative breakthrough and a massive telescope. Researchers realized that some galaxies might be hidden by the bright lights of quasars behind them, so they scanned quasar data for “dips” where those lights might...

6 Stories