Zooming in on the record-breaking quasar J0529-4351

This video takes us on a journey from our Milky Way far into the sky to the quasar J0529-4351, the bright core of a distant galaxy, in the direction of the Pictor constellation. Using ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile, this quasar has been found to be the most luminous object known in the Universe to date. It is so far away that its light has taken over 12 billion years to reach us. The supermassive black hole powering J0529-4351 is the fastest-growing black hole ever discovered. The video ends with an artist’s impression of this record-breaking object; all other visuals shown are real astronomical images.

Credit:
ESO/N. Risinger (skysurvey.org)/Digitized Sky Survey 2/Dark Energy Survey/M. Kornmesser. Music: Astral Electronic

For more details on this discovery, check: eso2402 (https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2402/)