ESA's Euclid Telescope Discovers 31 Ancient Quasars, Two Record‑Oldest

Astronomers using the European Space Agency’s Euclid space telescope have identified 31 quasars dating to when the universe was only about 5 % of its current age – roughly 670 million years after the Big Bang. Among them, two objects (EUCL J172902.75+641018.1 and EUCL J125308.55+705432.3) set a new record as the earliest quasars ever observed, their light having travelled more than 13 billion light‑years and showing redshifts of 7.77 and 7.69.

Quasars are extremely luminous galaxy cores powered by supermassive black holes; these two emit the equivalent of about a trillion suns. The discovery, published in *Astronomy & Astrophysics*, offers fresh clues about how such massive black holes grew so quickly in the early universe. “These objects provide the best clues for understanding how supermassive black holes form,” said co‑author Joseph Hennawi of UC Santa Barbara and Leiden University.

The Euclid mission, launched in 2023 to map large‑scale cosmic structure, is now proving pivotal for probing the universe’s infancy, with the 31‑quasar census representing the first large statistical sample of such ancient objects.