Scientists have discovered the farthest radio explosion ever known.
The blast comes from a quasar so far away that it took 13 billion years to reach the earth.
This means that the signals that scientists have detected come from a time when the universe was only 780 million years old.
In the past, more quasars have been found. But the new one is notable for being ‘radio noisy’. This is the first time that radio rays can be detected by such a distant object.
Quasars are one of the brightest objects in the universe. They are found in the center of some galaxies and are driven by supermassive black holes – when the surrounding gas is eaten up by the black hole, it releases energy that moves through the universe and can be studied by scientists.
A small minority of the quasars are ‘radio loud’, or have radiators that emit radio emissions. Only about 10 percent of the quasars belong to the category, but it is especially useful because it shines so brightly for scientists.
Although scientists have continued to find a large number of objects from the first billion years of the universe, especially during the past decade, it is more difficult to find those that emit radio signals.
The quasar, called P172 + 18, is also powered by one of the hungriest black holes ever seen. The supermassive black hole is about 300 million times more massive than our sun and consumes material so fast that it is one of the fastest growing ever observed.
“I find it very exciting to discover ‘new’ black holes for the first time and to offer another building block to understand the primeval universe, where we come from, and ultimately ourselves,” said Chiara Mazzucchelli of the European Southern Observatory said. who was one of the scientists who found the object.
Scientists were able to inspect the quasar in detail after seeing it using the Magellan Telescope at Las Campanas Observatory in Chile. After detecting the radio explosion, they were able to recognize it as coming from a distant quasar.
Further research – using a wide range of equipment, including the ESO’s Very Large Telescope – has enabled scientists to study the quasar and black hole in more detail, including the latter’s large and rapidly growing mass.
“Once we got the data, we examined it with a view and we immediately knew we had discovered the farthest radio-hard quasar known so far,” said Eduardo Bañados of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Germany. working with Dr. Mazzucchelli.
The scientists think that their record may not last very long, as they discover other radio-hard quasars even deeper within the universe. “This discovery makes me optimistic and I believe – and hope – that the distance record will be broken soon,” Bañados said.
A paper describing the finding is entitled ‘The discovery of a highly attractive, radio-hard quasar at z = 6.82’ and will be published in The Astrophysical Journal.