Overview

• Astronomers have created the most extensive map of the universe's active supermassive black holes, charting about 1.3 million quasars.
• The map spans the largest-ever volume of the universe, with the furthest quasars shining when the universe was only 1.5 billion years old.
• The map was created using data from the European Space Agency's Gaia space telescope, along with data from NASA's Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey.
• This new quasar catalog allows scientists to study dark matter, understand how the cosmos expanded, and measure cosmic phenomena like initial density fluctuations and the distribution of cosmic voids.
• The project showcases the productivity of astronomical projects, with Gaia's mission to map our galaxy inadvertently providing a comprehensive view of the universe's quasars.