13 billion light-years away, at the very edge of our observable universe, supermassive black holes lurk inside their galactic hosts, feeding.
Weighing in at the equivalent of 6.6 billion of our suns, this behemoth is located in a galaxy that neighbors our own.
One of the most ravenous beasts in the universe has died, leaving behind an optical echo of its former self.
The first known case of a quasar acting as a gravitational lens has been discovered, magnifying a distant galaxy and splitting it into two distinct images. Jennifer Ouellette chats with the discoverers.
The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) has created a database of millions of objects for astronomers to study including 105,783 quasars -- the active centers of distant galaxies with supermassive black holes lurking inside.
Distant quasars are acting very strange: they're not acting strange. Usually the massive black holes powering these active galactic cores should exhibit some time dilation, but the most distant quasars don't.
A new radio telescope is under construction, consisting of 44 stations spread across Europe. Not only will LOFAR peer deep into the cosmos with unprecedented detail, it will also listen out for ET's transmissions.
On the very edge of our observable universe live two quasars. Both contain active and growing primordial black holes, but where's all the dust?