Euclid Finds 31 Ancient Quasars, Including 2 Record Holders From 670 Million Years After Big Bang
Updated
Updated · Space.com · Jul 9
Euclid Finds 31 Ancient Quasars, Including 2 Record Holders From 670 Million Years After Big Bang
3 articles · Updated · Space.com · Jul 9
Summary
Astronomers using ESA's Euclid telescope identified 31 early-universe quasars, including two about 13 billion light-years away that date to just 670 million years after the Big Bang.
The haul includes 12 quasars from when the universe was around 770 million years old and more than doubles the known count of quasars this ancient.
Euclid gathered the discoveries in a single year, compared with roughly a decade for astronomers to find the first 10 or so quasars at similar distances.
The wider sample includes fainter objects as well as bright ones, letting researchers study early quasars as a population and probe how supermassive black holes grew so fast.
The finds come from Euclid's Wide Survey, which will map about one-third of the sky and could also illuminate the epoch of reionization, dark matter and dark energy.
How did billion-sun black holes form so soon after the Big Bang, challenging our cosmic theories?
Could the universe's first monsters—ancient quasars—be powered by decaying dark matter?
Record-Breaking 31 Ancient Quasars Discovered by Euclid: New Insights into Early Supermassive Black Holes and the Universe’s First Billion Years
Overview
The European Space Agency's Euclid space telescope, launched in 2023, has quickly proven its power by discovering 31 ancient quasars, including two that are now the earliest known. These two record-breaking quasars date back to just 670 million years after the Big Bang, giving astronomers an unprecedented look into the universe's infancy. This breakthrough greatly increases the number of known quasars at high redshift, providing a much richer dataset for scientists. Euclid's rapid success highlights its strong capabilities in exploring the distant universe and deepening our understanding of cosmic history.