Euclid telescope spots oldest quasars ever discovered, deepening cosmic mystery

Paris: The Euclid space telescope has identified the oldest quasars ever discovered — the brightest objects in the universe — adding new questions to scientists’ understanding of the early cosmos.

A quasar is the intensely luminous core of a distant galaxy powered by a supermassive black hole. As gas spirals into the black hole, huge amounts of gravitational energy are converted into radiation, making quasars shine with the light of a trillion suns.

Because they are so bright and so distant, quasars act as cosmic beacons. They provide valuable insights into how galaxies and black holes formed and evolved in the early universe.

Scientists said the new Euclid observations push the record further back in time and have deepened an existing mystery about how such massive black holes grew so quickly after the Big Bang.

Further analysis is underway to understand what the discovery reveals about the formation of the first galaxies.