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<\/picture><\/div>\n\n A quasar emits exceptional amounts of energy generated by matter falling into a supermassive black hole, as seen in this illustration released on July 6, 2026.
\n | Photo Credit:
\n NASA\n <\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\nuniverse’s most luminous and energetic objects \u2014 is a
\nsupermassive black hole caught in the \u200cact of guzzling matter at
\nthe heart of a galaxy. Scientists have now found quasars dating
\nto so \u200bearly in cosmic history that they are baffled as to how
\nthey already existed at that primordial time.<\/p>\n
Using \u2060the European Space Agency’s Euclid space telescope,
\nresearchers said they have identified 31 ancient quasars,
\nobservations that add to the mystery of how the universe was far
\nmore advanced in its earliest stages than previously believed.<\/p>\n
These included the two earliest quasars known, dating to a
\nbit more than 13.1 \u200cbillion years ago when the universe was 5% of
\nits current age, about 670 million years after the inceptive Big
\nBang event. They both shine with a brightness about a trillion
\ntimes greater than the sun’s.<\/p>\n
Quasars like \u200cthese are powered by black holes hundreds of
\nmillions to billions of times the sun’s mass, though the masses
\nof \u200cthese \u2060two have yet to be precisely measured.<\/p>\n
“A quasar is the blazing core of a galaxy,” said Daming
\nYang, \u2060a doctoral student in astrophysics at Leiden University’s
\nLeiden Observatory in the Netherlands and lead author of the
\nstudy published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.<\/p>\n
“At the center sits a giant black hole. Black holes
\nthemselves are dark, but the black hole’s gravity pulls in gas
\nand dust, which spiral toward it like water \u200bgoing down a drain.
\nAs this happens, the gas \u200cgets incredibly hot and shines
\nbrighter than the entire galaxy around it,” Yang said.<\/p>\n
The two earliest ones described in the study date to a
\nchapter in the universe’s history that scientists call the
\n“epoch of reionization,” or cosmic dawn.<\/p>\n
“The universe back then was much smaller and denser, and
\nfilled with a fog of neutral hydrogen. It was also a time of
\nrapid \u200cchange: the first stars, galaxies and black holes were
\nlighting up and burning away that fog, transforming the \u200buniverse
\ninto the transparent one we see today,” Yang said.<\/p>\n
During this time, hydrogen atoms were stripped of their
\nelectrons and put into the state in which most hydrogen in
\nintergalactic space remains today.<\/p>\n
A DEEPENING MYSTERY<\/h2>\n
Scientists in \u2060recent years, through observations by the
\nJames Webb Space Telescope and Euclid among others, have gained
\na greater understanding of the universe’s earliest stages. It
\npossessed mature galaxies and, as the new study illustrates,
\nhungry and huge supermassive black holes inside them.<\/p>\n
“Everything was packed into \u200ca much smaller volume since the
\nuniverse has expanded roughly eightfold in linear scale since
\nthen,” said astrophysicist and study co-author Joseph Hennawi of
\nthe University of California, Santa Barbara, and Leiden
\nUniversity.<\/p>\n
“The most important thing these distant quasars tell us is
\nthat these supermassive black holes were already present in the
\nextremely early cosmic times. This does not provide very much
\ntime to grow these objects, because the universe is simply too
\nyoung. This is a major unsolved problem in astrophysics,”
\nHennawi said.<\/p>\n
Having early supermassive black holes of this scale pushes
\nthe current understanding of black hole growth to its limits.<\/p>\n
“Either the first black holes were born already massive
\nthrough some exotic \u200cchannel, or they grew much faster than we
\nthought possible. Every step further back in time makes that
\npuzzle harder,” Yang said. “That is precisely the \u200bcore mystery
\nof these objects. And honestly, this study deepens it rather
\nthan solving it.”<\/p>\n
The earliest galaxies differed from the grand spiral and
\ngiant elliptical structures seen today. They were comparatively
\nsmaller, though richer in the gas \u2060that drove star formation.<\/p>\n
As is still the case today, at the center of each of those
\ngalaxies sits a supermassive black hole. \u2060Our own Milky Way
\ngalaxy has one at its core, called Sagittarius A*, though it is
\nin a quiescent phase.<\/p>\n
Euclid was launched in 2023 mainly to investigate the
\nmysterious cosmic components called dark energy and dark matter,
\nbut it has \u200cobserved quasars, providing a scientific bonus.<\/p>\n
“Before Euclid, decades of searching by the whole
\nastronomical community had yielded only a handful of quasars
\nfrom the early era, limited mainly by the telescopes available.<\/p>\n
“With this sample, we are entering a new era: \u200bstudying these
\nearliest supermassive black holes as a population, and finally
\naddressing how they were born and grew so quickly when the
\nuniverse was very young,” Yang said.<\/p>\n
Published on July 8, 2026 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n