The Euclid telescope has discovered 31 of the oldest quasars, including two that date back to when the Universe was just 5% of its current age, the European Space Agency (ESA) announced today, which sent the spacecraft into space in 2023.
A quasar is an extremely luminous and distant nucleus of a galaxy, powered by a supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy, and is considered the brightest celestial object in the Universe. During this brief phase of the galaxy’s life, large amounts of matter swirl into the black hole, releasing enormous quantities of energy.
Two of the quasars captured by the Euclid space telescope, the oldest ever observed according to an ESA statement, emerged when the Universe was 670 million years old, with the estimated age of the Universe being 13.8 billion years.
Cited in the statement, Valeria Pettorino, a scientist for the Euclid mission, pointed out that quasars like these are rare discoveries and authentic time machines that allow us to explore the early Universe and understand how the first generation of galaxies emerged. Quasars this old are difficult to detect not only because few galaxies had time to grow large enough, but also because their light is faint and easily confused with that of less distant stars.
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One of the two oldest quasars is embedded in a galaxy filled with gas and dust that is actively forming new stars. The results of the discovery are described in an article published in the specialized journal Astronomy & Astrophysics. Launched in July 2023, the Euclid space telescope began scientific observations in February 2024.
Portugal, an ESA member state since 2000, participated in manufacturing components of the spacecraft and in planning the observations, which will total around 50,000 over the six-year duration of the mission. The telescope was designed to observe in detail, at 1.5 million kilometers from Earth, billions of galaxies, including the most distant ones, upon which dark matter and dark energy generate effects regarding their structure, shape, distribution, motion, and evolution.
