Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the USA have for the first time detected previously unreachable starlight surrounding ancient quasars—bright centers of active galaxies with black holes at their cores. These are ring-shaped light flares that occur around absorbing black holes.
A new study published in The Astrophysical Journal has allowed astronomers to observe, for the first time, the faint light from stars in the parent galaxies of three ancient quasars aged over 13 billion years. This breakthrough will help specialists understand the processes involved in the formation of the earliest black holes and galaxies.
The scientists also found that the black holes in these ancient quasars were significantly more massive than their parent galaxies, suggesting that they could accumulate mass faster than the galaxies that surround them.
These ancient quasars were first observed using the powerful James Webb Telescope. This includes J2236+0032 and J2255+0251, which are located approximately 12.9 and 12.8 billion light-years away, respectively.
Quasars can be observed from Earth as they were in the early stages of the universe’s formation. For instance, in early January 2022, scientists discovered the oldest among them—J0313-1806—situated 13 billion light-years away, observed as it was just 670 million years after the Big Bang.
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