Quasars – discs of gas around supermassive black holes – are incredibly bright Mark Garlick/Science Photo Library
A quasar has been spotted 13 billion light years away from us. It’s the farthest one we’ve ever seen, and it already existed 690 million years after the birth of the universe. Finding a quasar – a supermassive black hole with a bright disc of material circling it – from so long ago indicates that huge black holes must have formed quickly in the universe’s youth. The quasar’s strange light could also help us understand how the cosmos evolved.
