More distant quasars have been found in the past. But the new one is notable because it is “radio-loud” – it is the first time that radio jets have been able to be detected from such a distant object.
Quasars are among the brightest objects in the universe. They are found at the centre of some galaxies nd are powered by supermassive black holes – when the surrounding gas is eaten by the black hole, it throws out energy that travels across the universe and can be studied by scientists.
This map represents the combined effort of more than 20 years of mapping the Universe using the Sloan Foundation telescope. The cosmic history that has been revealed in this map shows that about six billion years ago, the expansion of the Universe began to accelerate, and has continued to get faster and faster ever since. This accelerated expansion seems to be due to a mysterious invisible component of the Universe called “dark energy,” consistent with Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity but extremely difficult to reconcile with our current understanding of particle physics.
Im Projekt forschte das Team bis zu elf Milliarden Jahre zurück in die Vergangenheit. Dazu benutzten sie sogenannte Quasare – der aktive Kern einer Galaxie, deren supermassenreiches Schwarzes Loch in ihrem Zentrum durch die darin eingeschlossene Materie extrem hell wird.
Die Karte zeigt, dass sich die Expansion des Universums an einem bestimmten Punkt beschleunigt hat und seither anhält. Die Forschenden machen dafür dunkle Energie verantwortlich.