Quasar
Videos
A quasar is an extremely luminous active galactic nucleus. It is sometimes known as a quasi-stellar object, abbreviated QSO. The emission from an AGN is powered by accretion onto a supermassive black
Artist's image of the accretion disc in ULAS J1120+0641, a very distant quasar containing a supermassive black hole with a mass two billion times that of the Sun
The Chandra X-ray image of PKS 1127-145, a quasar about 10 billion light-years from Earth. An X-ray jet extends at least a million light-years from the quasar. Image is 60 arcseconds on a side. RA 11h 30m 7.10s Dec −14° 49' 27" in Crater. Observation date: May 28, 2000. Instrument: ACIS
Hubble images of quasar 3C 273. At right, a coronagraph blocks the quasar's light, making it easier to see the surrounding host galaxy.
A cosmic mirage known as the Einstein Cross. Four apparent images are actually from the same quasar.
Supermassive black hole
Videos
A supermassive black hole is the largest type of black hole, with its mass being on the order of hundreds of thousands, or millions to billions, of times the mass of the Sun. Black holes are a class o
The first direct image of a supermassive black hole, found in the galactic core of Messier 87.
An artist's conception of a supermassive black hole surrounded by an accretion disk and emitting a relativistic jet.
Artist's impression of the huge outflow ejected from the quasar SDSS J1106+1939
Artist's illustration of galaxy with jets from a supermassive black hole