Quasar gas depiction

University of Florida and University of California-Santa Cruz astronomers are the first to discover the onset of a huge flow of gas from a quasar, or the super-bright core of an extremely remote young galaxy still being formed. The gas was expelled from the quasar and its enormous black hole sometime in the space of four years around 10 billion years ago — an extremely brief and ancient blip that would have gone unnoticed were it not for two separate observational efforts. In this artist’s depiction, the outflow of blue gas surrounds the black hole in the quasar.

(University of Florida/Myda Iamiceli)
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