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These red dots represent some of the earliest galaxies known to astronomy. Located ten billion light-years away, they're only a few billion years older than the Big Bang. Their presence explains why we're now surrounded by massive elliptical galaxies. More »
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Located some 11 billion light-years from Earth are two clouds of gas. Just two billion years younger than the Big Bang itself, they appear to be the first known clouds that are completely unaltered since the birth of the universe. More »
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A distant, hyper-energetic black hole known as a quasar contains the largest reserve of water in the known universe, equivalent to 140 trillion times the water on Earth. The solution to our water crisis is only 12 billion light-years away! More »
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The galaxy Markarian 231 is dying, and its own supermassive black hole is ripping it apart. The black hole is absorbing so much material and spewing so much dust and gas back out that star formation has been completely disrupted. More »
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Back in 2007, Dutch schoolteacher and amateur astronomer Hanny van Arkel spotted a strange object near a distant spiral galaxy...and nobody had any idea what it was. Now, four years later, we're finally learning the truth about this mysterious object More »
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The universe is thought to have consistently become cooler over time. But about 1.5 billion years ago, the cosmos overheated in a massive temperature spike, caused by runaway black holes that pumped tons of ultraviolet radiation into the universe. More »
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Gravitational lenses are cosmic phenomena that radically distort light passing by, make objects behind the lens appear much brighter, and help astronomers see distant parts of the universe. And now we've seen a quasar get in on the fun. More »
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Billions of light years away, quasars are the brightest objects in the universe. So bright, in fact, that we'd never gotten a good look at what makes them tick...until scientists discovered a gargantuan nebula linking galaxies and fueling one quasar. More »
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Astronomers have caught the first definitive glimpse of one of the most dramatic events in the universe. Billions of light-years away, two galaxies are merging into one, creating a supermassive binary quasar at their center. More »
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The discovery of water vapor in a distant quasar system has overturned established ideas about the existence of water in the early universe. More »
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