Plasma-spewing quasar shines light on universe's youth, early galaxy formation

Carnegie's Eduardo Bañados led a team that found a quasar with the brightest radio emission ever observed in the early universe, due to it spewing out a jet of extremely fast-moving material.

Bañados' discovery was followed up by Emmanuel Momjian of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, which allowed the team to see with unprecedented detail the jet shooting out of a quasar that formed within the universe's first billion years of existence.

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Credit: Artwork by Robin Dienel, Carnegie Institution for Science

Artist's conception of a radio jet spewing out fast-moving material from the newly discovered quasar, which formed within the first billion years of the universe's existence.

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These beams of plasma are the result of the extraction of energy from the black hole’s rotation as it consumes a disk of swirling material that surrounds it. These jets have very strong emissions at radio wavelengths.

Several types of galaxies, known as active galaxies, emit enormous amounts of energy from their central region or nucleus, with the most luminous objects known as quasars.

Most scientists argue that quasars contain a central black hole, with a mass of at least several million Suns.

Astronomers have found a quasar that's more than five times more powerful than any previously seen.

Quasars are mega-bright geysers of matter and energy powered by super-massive black holes at the centers of young galaxies.