the space distance record has been broken…

Astronomers beat the previous record that was estimated to be 12.9 billion light years away.  Can you guess what they found?  It wasn’t an individual star but actually a quasar.  A quasar is different from a regular galaxy in that they have luminosities way higher.  Many quasars for example have a luminosity 100x or more than the Milky Way.  Here is a bit more information on this latest discovery of the most distant quasar ever seen:

A team of astrophysicists using the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii has successfully measured the farthest galaxy ever recorded and more interestingly, captured its hydrogen emission as seen when the Universe was less than 600 million years old. Additionally, the method in which the galaxy called EGSY8p7 was detected gives important insight into how the very first stars in the Universe lit-up after the Big Bang. The paper will be published shortly in the Astrophysical Journal Letters

Let’s find out more on this distant quasar and check out the videos on page 2

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