File:Hubble Resolves Two Pairs of Quasars.jpg

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current	13:28, 13 April 2021		1,860 × 920 (274 KB)	commons>Pandreve	Uploaded a work by NASA, ESA, H. Hwang and N. Zakamska (Johns Hopkins University), and Y. Shen (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign) from https://esahubble.org/images/opo2114a/ with UploadWizard

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Author	Space Telescope Science Institute Office of Public Outreach
Source	ESA/Hubble
Credit/Provider	NASA, ESA, H. Hwang and N. Zakamska (Johns Hopkins University), and Y. Shen (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign)
Short title	Hubble Resolves Two Pairs of Quasars
Image title	These two NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope images reveal two pairs of quasars that existed 10 billion years ago and reside at the hearts of merging galaxies. Each of the four quasars resides in a host galaxy. These galaxies, however, cannot be seen because they are too faint, even for Hubble. The quasars within each pair are only about 10,000 light-years apart—the closest ever seen at this cosmic epoch. Quasars are brilliant beacons of intense light from the centers of distant galaxies that can outshine their entire galaxies. They are powered by supermassive black holes voraciously feeding on infalling matter, unleashing a torrent of radiation. The quasar pair in the left-hand image is catalogued as J0749+2255; the pair on the right, as J0841+4825. The two pairs of host galaxies inhabited by each double quasar will eventually merge. The quasars will then tightly orbit each other until they eventually spiral together and coalesce, resulting in aneven more massive, but solitary black hole. The image for J0749+2255 was taken 5 January 2020. The J0841+4825 snapshot was taken 30 November 2019. Both images were taken in visible light with Wide Field Camera 3.
Usage terms	Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Date and time of data generation	18:09, 6 April 2021
JPEG file comment	Inhabitants of our Milky Way galaxy living several billion years from now will have a markedly different-looking sky overhead. Two brilliant objects, each as bright as the full Moon or brighter, will drown out the stars with their radiance. These giant blazing light bulbs are a pair of quasars, brought to life by the collision of our Milky Way with the neighboring Andromeda galaxy. Quasars are ignited by monster black holes voraciously feeding on infalling matter, which unleashes a torrent of radiation. The Milky Way and Andromeda have such black holes at their hearts, which are now sleeping giants. That is, until the big bang-up. The duo will be as deadly then as it is dazzling. Blistering radiation from the quasar pair might sterilize the surfaces of planets, wiping out innumerable extraterrestrial civilizations. This tale of "death star" dueling quasars looming in the sky might seem like a scene out of a science fiction movie. But the real universe is stranger than fiction. This is actually a story that played out between pairs of galaxies that existed long ago and far away. Two quasar pairs photographed by Hubble existed 10 billion years ago, during the peak epoch of galaxy close encounters. The discovery offers a unique way to probe collisions among galaxies in the early universe that might otherwise have gone undetected. Ancient quasars are scattered all across the heavens, so finding these dynamic duos is fortuitous. Astronomers estimate only one in a thousand quasars are really double quasars.
Software used	Adobe Photoshop 22.2 (Macintosh)
File change date and time	15:58, 16 March 2021
Date and time of digitizing	13:49, 2 March 2021
Date metadata was last modified	13:05, 16 March 2021
Unique ID of original document	xmp.did:03f2fec8-b661-45d7-8d2a-ba9e3ea6e5cc
Keywords	J0749+2255 J0841+4825
Contact information	outreach@stsci.edu https://esahubble.org ESA Office, Space Telescope Science Institute, 3700 San Martin Dr Baltimore, MD, 21218 United States 410-338-4444
IIM version	4

File:Hubble Resolves Two Pairs of Quasars.jpg

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