A team of European astronomers, glimpsing back in time to when the universe was just a youngster, says it has detected the most distant and earliest quasar yet. Light from this brilliant, starlike object took nearly 13 billion years to reach Earth, meaning the quasar existed when the universe was only 770 million years old - a kid by cosmic standards. The discovery ranks as the brightest object ever found. Read more
A team of European astronomers has used ESO's Very Large Telescope and a host of other telescopes to discover and study the most distant quasar found to date. This brilliant beacon, powered by a black hole with a mass two billion times that of the Sun, is by far the brightest object yet discovered in the early Universe. The results will appear in the 30 June 2011 issue of the journal Nature. Read more
Astrônomos europeus descobrem o quasar mais distante já encontrado
Astrônomos europeus descobriram o quasar mais distante descoberto até o momento a partir das observações realizadas com o telescópio de longo alcance do Observatório Europeu do Sul (ESO), em Cerro Paranal, no Chile, e outros telescópios. Segundo os resultados do estudo facilitados por Richard Hook, porta-voz do ESO de Garching, no sul da Alemanha, se trata do objeto mais luminoso descoberto até agora no Universo primordial, que é alimentado por um buraco negro que possui dois bilhões de vezes a massa do Sol. Read more
Astronomers said on Wednesday they had snared light from a bright, ancient galaxy with a super-massive black hole at its core, a finding that would help explain aspects of the young Universe. The phenomenon is called a quasar, which are very bright but very distant galaxies with a mighty black hole at their heart. Until now, the most distant quasar ever seen sent light 870 million years after the Big Bang, which is believed to have occurred nearly 13.7 billion years ago. This record has now been beaten by European astronomers, who after a five-year probe found a quasar whose light was emitted just 770 million years after the cosmic birth. Read more
Title: Photometry of the z=7.08 quasar ULAS J1120+0641 Authors: Warren, Steve; Mortlock, Daniel; Venemans, Bram; Simpson, Chris; Hewett, Paul; McMahon, Richard
Numerous surveys are underway, or planned, to discover quasars of redshift z>6.5 in order to explore the epoch of cosmic reionisation. In UKIDSS we recently discovered the bright quasar ULAS J1120+0641, of redshift z=7.08, the highest redshift quasar known by a large margin. We propose photometry of this source in Channels 1 and 2 at S/N=30. The Spitzer observations form part of a campaign to measure the multiwavelength SED of the source which will be used to seek evidence for evolution at this very early time. The SED will also provide a benchmark for future surveys for high-redshift quasars to explore the epoch of reionisation at even higher redshifts. Additionally these deep confusion-limited observations will complement any future deep optical and near-ir observations of the field to detect companion galaxies and faint AGN.
Astrónomos europeos descubren el quásar más distante conocido en observatorio Cerro Paranal
La luz de este quásar, llamado ULAS J1120+0641, tardó 12.900 millones de años en llegar a los telescopios de la Tierra, por lo que es visto tal y como era cuando el Universo tenía tan sólo 770 millones de años. Read more