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quasars
astrophysics
Galactic Beacons Get Snuffed Out in a Cosmic Eyeblink
Quasars powered by supermassive black holes have been unexpectedly vanishing. Scientists have started to figure out why.
Abstractions blog
A Short History of the Missing Universe
Astronomers have known where the universe’s missing matter has been hiding for the past 20 years. So why did it take so long to find it?
astrophysics
The Last of the Universe’s Ordinary Matter Has Been Found
For decades, astronomers weren’t able to find all of the atomic matter in the universe. A series of recent papers has revealed where it’s been hiding.
astrophysics
Earliest Black Hole Gives Rare Glimpse of Ancient Universe
It weighs as much as 780 million suns and helped to cast off the cosmic Dark Ages. But now that astronomers have found the earliest known black hole, they wonder: How could this giant have grown so big, so fast?