Euclid telescope identifies 31 ancient quasars including two oldest observed

The European Space Agency's Euclid telescope has identified 31 quasars, including the two oldest yet observed, according to a study published Monday. The light from the oldest pair originated when the universe was roughly 670 million years old. Quasars are powered by supermassive black holes at galaxy centers that consume surrounding matter and emit intense radiation.

The new detections were made from a stable point 1.5 million kilometers from Earth.

Discovery details Previous searches relied mainly on ground-based telescopes.

Euclid, launched in 2023, has doubled the number of known ancient quasars in two years, the lead author of the study said. The objects date to the epoch of reionization, when the first stars and galaxies formed and ended the cosmic dark ages. Researchers plan to use the quasars to trace how the universe became reionized.

Ongoing observations The James Webb space telescope has also observed the newly announced quasars, and the team will analyze that data. Scientists aim to build a record of quasar activity during the universe's first billion years. Euclid is conducting a six-year mission to map one-third of the sky and study dark matter and dark energy.

Last month the telescope captured an image containing 60 million stars in the Milky Way's center.