Bright idea

The best-ever images of four powerful quasars beyond our own galaxy have been captured by astronomers. Quasars are incredibly bright objects that are thought to be powered by supermassive black holes that consume stars from surrounding galaxies.

The astronomers gained the images by connecting images from 40 ground-based telescopes and a Japanese space observatory. By linking up in this way, the scientists created a virtual telescope that is effectively bigger than the entire Earth.

From Science 281