It’s the farthest, oldest, and perhaps most mysterious object we’ve ever discovered.
Scientists discover extremely rare quadruple quasar system
A team of astronomers has discovered a unique system of quadruple quasars. The quartet, discovered at the very edge of the universe, is one of the most massive structures in the known universe.
Hubble Discovers Huge Halo Around Andromeda Galaxy
In an article published in the Astrophysical Journal last week, astronomers described a massive halo around the Andromeda Galaxy, extending up close to Earth. The team spotted the halo through NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and consider it one of the galaxy’s most important features.
Newly discovered ancient Black hole is monstrously big for its age
Astronomers have discovered a humongous supermassive black hole that’s 12 billion times as massive as the Sun. What’s peculiar about it isn’t necessarily its mass – some even bigger black holes have been found – but rather its age. Observations suggest that the black hole 12.8 billion light-years away, which means what scientists are reading and observing what the black
Distant Black Hole Spins at Half the Speed of Light
About half of the Universe’s lifetime ago, it was feasting time for supermassive black holes – they were eating galaxies left and right, a new study might suggest. Taking advantage of a galaxy which acts like a natural zoom lens in space, astronomers have analyzed a black hole powering a quasar about 6 billion light years from Earth. “The ‘lens’ galaxy
Black hole bonanza discovered in neighboring galaxy
Astronomers have discovered 26 likely black holes in the Andromea Galaxy – the biggest number of black holes ever found in a galaxy except for our own. Black holes are pretty difficult to detect, because they emit no light of their own – they are only observed by light given off by material which falls into them. Just as a
Obese black holes outshone stars in earliest galaxies
Early galaxies were very different from those we see today – it was overgrown black holes, and not stars that lit them up, claims a new study; in it, it is suggested that these obese black holes were numerous and bright enough that we should be able to detect them now, billions of years after they shone. Born fat?
Rare and elusive triple quasar system discovered
This is only the second time ever that astronomers have managed to identify a triple quasar system – a highly elusive and very difficult to observe phenomenon. The international team of researchers identified and described the triple quasar system named QQQ J1519+0627 in a paper published in the Oxford University Press journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Quasars are some of
Largest known structure in the Universe discovered by scientists
Astronomers from Britain’s University of Central Lancashire have recently published a landmark paper that describes the largest known structure in the Universe, a group of quasars so large it spans 4 billion light-years across at its longest end. The study holds broader consequences, not just because of the encountered astronomical milestone, since it challenges Albert Einstein’s Cosmological Principle, the assumption that the
First stars formed 750 million years after the Big Bang
Determining when stars first started to form through out the early Universe is a matter of great importance for astronomers and astrophysicists looking to understand how the cosmos evolved from its incipient point of origin. Recently, researchers at MIT who have been studying the most distant quasar observed so far found no discernible trace of heavy elements, such as carbon and
Most powerful quasar outflow detected is two trillion times more energetic than the sun
Astronomers using ESO‘s Very Large Telescope (VLT) have discovered the most powerful quasar outflow discovered to date – five times more energetic than the previous record holder. Dubbed SDSS J1106+1939, the quasar outflow is at least equivalent to two million million times the power output of the Sun or 100 times higher than the total power output of the Milky Way
Dark energy influence on the Universe like a roller coster ride
Scientists with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-II) have used a novel technique to peer through the nature of dark energy as far as ten billion years ago and measure the three-dimensional structure of the distant Universe. Tracing this 3-D map scientists were able to assess the influence of dark energy over time, which might help unravel the mysteries of this repulsive
Largest 3-D map of the universe released by the SDSS [VIDEO]
Previously, we shared the largest and, respectively, most detailed 3-D maps of the Universe released by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Now the survey has released a new, massive update to the map, again, making it the largest 3-D map of the Universe, which pinpoints the locations and distances of over a million galaxies. Were you to envision this 3-D map
First evidence of dark galaxies from the early Universe spotted
An international team of astronomers may have come across the first sound evidence testifying the existence of dark galaxies – cosmic bodies from the early Universe long theorized by scientists in the past, but never before confirmed until now. Dark galaxies are small, gas-rich galaxies that are very inefficient at forming stars themselves. Their name comes from the fact that they’re
Quasars “snack” regularly, instead of “feasting in one gulp”
Quasars are some of the brightest objects in the Universe. Their formed after black holes devour captured material, like gas dust and stars that come too close, and release bright light that can be seen across the universe. Most of the popular astronomy today is orientated towards the particularly extremely bright quasars; those formed in a singular event consisting of the merger
Elemental gas clouds formed minutes after the Big Bang found
One of the fundamental backbones of the Big Bang theory states that after the rapid expansion of the Universe only the lightest elements were formed. A group of scientists stumbled across an amazing discovery recently when they found a gas cloud dating from the time of the early Universe exclusively made out of hydrogen and helium, proving another solid evidence that supports
Enormous water reservoir found in space is bigger than 140 trillion earth oceans
Astronomers have discovered the largest body of water so far known, a reservoir of water floating in space around a ancient distant quasar, holding 140 trillion times the mass of water in the Earth’s oceans. Remarkably enough, the find was dated as being 12 billion light years away, only 1.6 billion light years farther from the Big Bang. “Since astronomers
Most distant quasar in known Universe found
Astronomers have discovered the most distant quasar known so far, dubbed ULAS J1120+0641, powered by a supermassive black hole with a mass 2 billion times that of our sun – it’s also the brightest object in the known Universe. At a redshift of 7.1, placing it at only 770 million years after the Big Bang, the newly discovered quasar is so far away that
Serendipitous events show rare events in distant quasar
According to Murphy’s laws, all great discoveries happen by mistake. This is not the case here, but scientists had the opportunity to observe something they weren’t expecting at all. Astronomers at the University of California-Santa Cruz had the fortune of witnessing the birth of a young galaxy. They were the first to observe the onset of a huge flow of
Dusty Winds and the Seeded Planets
There is still some debate around how life appeared here on Earth and it is hard to find undeniable proof. But the findings from NASA‘s Spitzer Space Telescope suggest that space dust — the same stuff that makes up living creatures and planets — was manufactured in large quantities in the winds of black holes that populated our early