eso_eso0702a January 8th, 2007
Credit: ESO
Using ESO's Very Large Telescope and the W.M. Keck Observatory, astronomers at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in Switzerland and the California Institute of Technology, USA, have discovered what appears to be the first known triplet of quasars. This close trio of supermassive black holes lies about 10.5 billion light-years away towards the Virgo (The Virgin) constellation. The photo shows the image of the triple quasar QQQ 1429-008, with the three components (A, B and C) indicated on the additional image.
Provider: European Southern Observatory
Image Source: http://www.eso.org/public/images/eso0702a/
Curator: European Southern Observatory, Garching bei München, Germany
Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license
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