Ancient Quasars Identified as Farthest Ever Observed by Telescope

WHO:

CBS News - An international team of astronomers announced the discovery.

CBS News - Daming Yang, a PhD student at Leiden University, is the lead author of the study.

CBS News - Joseph Hennawi is a co-author of the study.

WHAT:

CBS News - The Euclid space telescope discovered 31 quasars, including the two oldest observed yet.

CBS News - The light from the oldest pair of quasars comes from when the universe was roughly 670 million years old.

CBS News - The discovery beats the previous record for the oldest quasar announced in 2021 by around 20 million years.

Phys.org - The two earliest quasars shone with the light of a trillion suns.

WHERE:

CBS News - The Euclid telescope is stationed about 1.5 million kilometers from Earth, at a stable hovering spot.

WHEN:

CBS News - The Euclid telescope was launched on July 1, 2023.

CBS News - The study was published on a Monday.

WHY:

CBS News - Scientists are hunting for ancient quasars to learn more about the infancy of the universe.

CBS News - The quasars are from the epoch of reionization, marking the end of the cosmic dark ages.

HOW:

CBS News - The Euclid telescope allows for more efficient searches across large areas of the sky to capture fainter light.

CBS News - Previous quasar hunts were mostly conducted with ground-based telescopes.

(UPDATED July 6, 2026 12:19 UTC)

An international team of astronomers has announced the discovery of 31 quasars, including the two oldest ever observed, thanks to the Euclid space telescope, which is stationed about 1.5 million kilometers from Earth. Lead author Daming Yang, a PhD student at Leiden University, noted that the light from the oldest pair of quasars dates back to when the universe was roughly 670 million years old, surpassing the previous record set in 2021 by around 20 million years. This groundbreaking study, which aims to deepen our understanding of the universe's infancy, was published on a Monday and highlights the enhanced capabilities of the Euclid telescope in efficiently searching large areas of the sky for fainter light.