Euclid finds 31 early-universe quasars, including two shining like a trillion Suns

ESA's Euclid space telescope has identified 31 previously unknown quasars from the early Universe, SciTechDaily reported in a write-up of Euclid Consortium results. Two of the objects radiated with the power of roughly a trillion Suns when the cosmos was only 670 million years old. Among the discoveries are 12 quasars with a redshift of 7 or higher. The oldest objects in the group are identified as EUCL J172902.75+641018.1 and EUCL J125308.55+705432.3, with redshifts of 7.77 and 7.69, making them the earliest quasars currently known in the report's account. Antonio La Marca, an ESA Research Fellow on the Euclid team, said the finding more than doubles the number of quasars known from that ancient epoch. Lead author Daming Yang of Leiden University said studying the early quasars can help explain how enormous black holes emerged during the Universe's infancy. Euclid, launched in 2023, combines wide-area coverage with faint infrared detection; the sample reaches back to when the cosmos had completed only 5% of its present lifespan. The results are tied to papers in Astronomy and Astrophysics, including DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/202658883.