Astronomers have discovered the first known triplet of quasars, according to the European Organization for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere.
Only about 100,000 to 150,000 light-years separate the three quasars. This light year is about the size of our own galaxy — the Milky Way. The quasars and their supermassive black hole-trio lie about 10.5 billion light years from the Earth.
Scientists from Caltech and the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in Switzerland made the discovery by using ESO’s Very Large Telescope at Cerro Paranal, Chile, and the WM Keck Observatory’s 10m telescope atop Mauna Kea in Hawaii.
George Djorgovski of the California Institute of Technology, who led the research team said,
Quasars are extremely rare objects. To find two of them so close together is very unlikely if they were randomly distributed in space. To find three is unprecedented.
Photo Courtesy: S. G. Djorgovski Et Al
