Astronomers Have Discovered the Most Distant Quasar Yet
This discovery should speak for itself: Scientists have discovered a crazy example of a crazy thing at a crazy distance. We’re talking about the furthest quasar yet—the incredibly bright light from a supermassive black hole 800 million times the mass of the Sun, from just 690 million years after the Big Bang.
Robin Dienel, courtesy of the Carnegie Institution for Science
A team of researchers announced their analysis of this quasar J1342+0928 today. The remarkable object originates from an era when the Universe looked very different than it does today. Its discovery could shed light, both literally and figuratively, on the origin story of the neophyte cosmos.
“By analysing this one object, we learn about the formation and growth of the first black holes, the production of dust in the galaxy hosting the black hole and about the Universe itself when it was only five percent of its current age,” Bram Venemans, researcher at the Max Plack Institute for Astronomy told Gizmodo.
The ancient Universe has a complex story. Right after the Big Bang, the Universe became completely opaque as light bounced and scattered off of the particles in the hot plasma of unpaired protons and electrons. Somewhere around 400,000 years later, these particles bound together and the light could travel unimpeded, eventually reaching our telescopes. Scientists observe this ancient light as microwaves hitting Earth from all directions—it’s called the cosmic microwave background. After that came a period where the Universe had lots of neutral hydrogen which emitted no light, called the Dark Ages.
Robin Dienel, courtesy of the Carnegie Institution for Science
A few hundred million years later, stuff began to glow as atoms condensed and released energy once again—including this quasar. “How that process happened and when exactly it happened has profound implications to how the Universe evolved afterwards,” Eduardo Bañados from the The Observatories of the Carnegie Institution for Science told Gizmodo.
The team noticed this quasar in a search through three surveys of the sky, then followed up with more specific probing from tools like spectrographs and radio telescopes. That way, they could determine properties like the object’s mass and age, and determine the potential rate at which such a galaxy with this object at the center could produce stars.
They also noticed a signature of missing spectral lines—missing colors in the spectrum of light unleashed by the quasar likely caused by interactions with the neutral hydrogen of this “reionization” period Bañados described.
Daniel Mortlock from Imperial College London pointed out that the reonization conclusion is based on some modeling assumptions in an email to Gizmdo. However, it was “overall, a great discovery,” he said. He felt it unambiguously proved the identity and age of the object, 80 million years older than the previous most distant quasar. He felt it would help scientists better study black hole formations and the conditions of the early Universe.
There’s more work to do, of course. Bañados said that with one single black hole there are few conclusions to be made. Venemans said there’s still much to learn about the dust itself, and that the size of the object couldn’t be determined.
But with a distant light so bright, the team hopes to learn more using powerful new telescopes like the Atacama Large Millimeter Array in Chile and the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope. Bañados said: “This object is so luminous that it will be the subject of future studies where more surprises might come.”
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Current NT rules allow anyone to post more-or-less anything more-or-less anywhere... so I won't waste our time with pointless rules about behavior. I will simply ignore any member who in my opinion posts in bad faith. (See this article for an explanation of "bad faith".)
As of today, I am ignoring:
arkpdx, Badfish, Capt. Cave Man, No Fear, Nowhere Man, XXJeffersonwhatever, Tacos!, Texan1211.
I will update this list, adding or deleting names, depending on what I see all across NT, and attach it to each of my seeds/articles.
Article is LOCKED by author/seeder
Who is online
476 visitors
The numbers are numbing...
Thanks, love these types of articles. Yep the time, distances and age of the Universe can be mind boggling.
Deleted for context. D.
Calling out people by name is against the rules I believe. You're skirting the COH by implying they don't post in good faith when you know you simply can't refute their arguments.
Mr. Nelson.....why did you post a list of NT members you have put on your ignore list? Doesn't seem professional to me.
NT isn't professional.
I am advising other members that there's no point, for them, to address any Replies to me because they won't get any answers. We'll waste less time.
Why thanks Bob, now I feel all warm and fuzzy inside.....
how does one get on the list?
I recently came across an excellent article about bad faith . IMHO, it brilliantly describes the behavior of a certain portion of NT's membership, including yourself, as demonstrated by this exchange. I've decided to ignore such members, since nothing useful can come of any attempt at conversation.
Well Sunshine, looks like you figured out how to make the list. hehehe
Seems like you are "ignoring" everybody who has a differing point of view. How very (in)tolerant of you.
No. You, for example. I don't agree with much (anything?) you say, but I assume you post in good faith.