“At the heart of many galaxies lie supermassive blackholes. These engines power quasars—active galactic nuclei that emit some of the brightest light astronomers can possibly see in the sky. How these extreme objects formed in the earliest years of the universe—when the cosmos was less than a billion years old—has long been something of a mystery.

But now, the European Space Agency's Euclid Space Telescope has identified a clutch of primordial quasars, dating to some 13 billion years ago—putting them among the oldest of these objects ever found in the universe.

Ancient quasars offer glimpses into the universe in its chaotic infancy; but actually finding these primordial objects can be very difficult. Because they formed so long ago, they are extremely far away from Earth, which can cause their bright light to be mistaken for a signal of a more run-of-the-mill celestial object.”

From Scientific American.