Deep in the hearts of galaxies, at the edge of the known Universe, loom quasars, among the brightest and most energetic phenomena in existence, powered by the gravity of supermassive black holes. Today, the Euclid Consortium announced the discovery of 31 new quasars, including the two most distant quasars ever observed. The furthest of these was confirmed with data taken at the LBT Observatory.
The Euclid Space Telescope, launched in 2023, surveys the sky in thousands of square degree swaths with deep sensitivity in search of distant quasars, but any detection of candidates must be followed up by ground-based observations to confirm the object’s status and determine its distance. Using the LUCI near-infrared instrument on the LBT, data were obtained in binocular mode in excellent conditions in September 2025, which confirmed the discovery.
The new record-holding quasar, with the identifier EUCL J172902+641018.1, has a redshift of 7.77, corresponding to an era only 670 million years after the Big Bang. This surpasses the previous record by about 15 million years. The distance places the quasar in what is known as the reionization era, the last major transition in the Universe’s history.
With another four years left in the Euclid survey, even more discoveries can be expected, allowing astronomers to slowly gather evidence to better characterize the quasars, the environments in which they form and live, and the properties of their host galaxies. These latest findings mark a significant step forward in our understanding of the early Universe.
https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full_html/2026/07/aa58883-26/aa58883-26.html
