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Ancient Quasar Shines Brightly, But All the Galaxy’s Stars Are Missing

Tuesday, October 23, 2012 17:22

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Hubble Space Telescope image of J1148+5251. Credit: NASA/ESA/M. Mechtley, R. Windhorst, Arizona State University

Quasars have been the best and most easily observed beacons for astronomers to probe the distant Universe, and one of the most distant and brightest quasars is providing a bit of a surprise. Astronomers studying a distant galaxy, dubbed J1148+5251 and which contains a bright quasar, are seeing only the quasar and not the host galaxy itself. It has been thought that the quasar has been feeding on a handful of stars every year in order to bulk up to its size of three billion solar masses over just a few hundred million years. But where are all the stars?
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Read the rest of Ancient Quasar Shines Brightly, But All the Galaxy’s Stars Are Missing (682 words)

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