A rare double quasar system 10 billion light-years away could help astronomers uncover the secrets of the early universe.
After 33 years, the Hubble Space Telescope is still uncovering new cosmic surprises. The venerable instrument recently added to its extensive catalog of finds when it spotted a rare double quasar blazing away in the distant reaches of the universe. Quasars are among the brightest objects in the universe, emitting more light than the entire Milky Way.
"We don't see a lot of double quasars at this early time in the universe," Yu-Ching Chen , a researcher at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and lead author of the study, said in a statement . Because of the way light bends around a massive gravity source — an effect called gravitational lensing — it can be difficult for scientists to determine whether an apparent double quasar is genuine or an optical illusion. But in this case astronomers were able to use ground-based telescopes to double-check Hubble’s work. They used data from the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii to confirm that the quasars were a binary system, rather than a trick of the light.
Despite their recent discovery, the double quasars likely no longer exist: In the intervening eons from the light leaving the quasars to the moment it was picked up by Hubble, they have likely collided and merged with one another into a single black hole even more massive than the two that went into it. Likewise, the galaxies orbiting them have probably become one gigantic elliptical galaxy.
Hubble is scheduled for decommissioning in 2026, but that doesn’t mean astronomers will have to give up quasar hunting. One of its successors, NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope , is set to launch in 2027. This instrument will peer into a similar slice of the electromagnetic spectrum as Hubble but with an even wider view, making it ideal for tracking down quasars.
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