Science / Medicine : A Quasar Out on the Edge

Scientists have discovered the most distant object seen so far in the universe, a quasar that is about 14 billion light-years away.

Using the Palomar Observatory in northern San Diego County, scientists from Caltech, Princeton University and the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton detected the quasar in the direction of the constellation Ursa Major just below the bowl of the Big Dipper.

Quasars are the most luminous objects in the universe, shining with a brilliance greater than a thousand galaxies, but the recently discovered quasar is so far away it is 400,000 times too faint to be seen by the unaided eye. The discovery, announced in the December issue of the Astronomical Journal, was made by Donald P. Schneider of the Institute for Advanced Study, Maarten Schmidt of Caltech and James E. Gunn of Princeton.

Quasars are “quasi-stellar objects” and most astronomers believe they are powered by a “black hole,” an object so dense and its gravity is so powerful that even light cannot escape. As the black hole gobbles up matter within its gravitational reach, the material emits brilliant light just before disappearing into the black hole, according to the prevailing theory.

The newly discovered quasar is so far away that it must have been created when the universe itself was quite young--possibly only a billion years after the Big Bang.