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Space
Space
Science
Robert Lea

Monster black hole seen feeding on nearby matter just 1 billion years after Big Bang (photos)

(Main) a view of the distant quasar SDSS J114816.64+525150.3 located 12.9 billion light-years away (inset) an illustration of a quasar.

Astronomers have imaged a feeding black hole-powered quasar at the very edge of the universe, so far away that it was seen as it appeared less than 1 billion years after the Big Bang.

The quasar, designated SDSS J114816.64+525150.3, is powered by a supermassive black hole over 3 billion times the mass of the sun located in the direction of the constellation Ursa Major. It was imaged by the Virtual Telescope Project in Italy using its 356 mm (14-inch) aperture robotic unit. 

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