Astronomers using ESA’s Euclid space telescope have discovered 31 ancient quasars from a time when the Universe was just 670 to 800 million years old. One of these objects, dubbed EUCL J172902.75+641018.1, sets the new record for the most distant quasar ever reported.
This collage shows 15 of the 31 newly discovered quasars by ESA’s Euclid space telescope. EUCL J172902.75+641018.1 and EUCL J125308.55+705432.3 are visible on the first row, the first and second from the left, respectively. Image credit: ESA / Euclid / Euclid Consortium / NASA / Euclid Science Ground Segment / Antoine Basset, CNES.
Quasars are among the brightest, most energetic objects in the Universe, powered by supermassive black holes devouring matter at the center of galaxies.
“These early quasars date back to the Universe’s infancy,” said Dr. Daming Yang, an astronomer at Leiden University.
“By finding and studying them, we can better understand how these enormous systems formed and grew so quickly — one of the greatest mysteries in astrophysics.”
“The earliest quasars we knew of until now were just the tip of the iceberg: the rare and bright outliers that have been easiest to spot.”
“We simply hadn’t found enough quasars from the Universe’s early days to study them properly as a group.”
“Euclid’s new finding changes all that, capturing not just the bright outliers but most of the ancient quasar population.”
The discovery adds 12 new quasars at a redshift of 7 or above, corresponding to the first 770 million years of the Universe.
The two most ancient of the batch, EUCL J172902.75+641018.1 and EUCL J125308.55+705432.3, have redshifts of 7.77 and 7.69, respectively, setting a new record for the most ancient quasars ever found.
Both lie just over 13 billion light-years away, and emerged during the Universe’s first 670 million years.
“This finding more than doubles the number of quasars we know of that are so ancient,” said Dr. Antonio La Marca, a researcher at ESA.
“Discovering the first 10 or so quasars at a redshift of 7 or above took astronomers more than a decade, but Euclid has already discovered more than that in a single year.”
“The Euclid team has taken a true ‘census’ of quasars at the dawn of the Universe for the first time.”
“It’s a big step towards understanding these fascinating objects on a more fundamental level.”
A paper detailing the discovery was published this week in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.
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D. Yang et al. 2026. Euclid: Discovery of 31 new quasars at 6.6 < z < 7.8. A&A 711, A104; doi: 10.1051/0004-6361/202658883
