Scientists Discover 77 Rare Red Quasars Hidden Behind Cosmic Dust

In the center of many large galaxies lies a supermassive black hole. If such black holes start accreting matter, then they form quasars, some of the most luminous celestial bodies in the cosmos. However, there are some quasars whose light gets obscured by the dust and which appear faint and red. Scientists have discovered 77 such "red quasars" recently, proving that they are in fact an important stage of galaxy development.

When Galaxies Collide

The current galaxy evolution theory states that galaxy mergers trigger a chain reaction process in the universe. The gas clouds run to the center of these galaxies during the collision of galaxies, and in the process, additional stars and even the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy are formed. A black hole is formed behind a curtain of gas and dust, which leads to the rapid growth of the black hole and the formation of a reddened quasar in the optical bands. Its occurrence had long been rumoured for many years, but its discovery was extremely difficult.

Cosmic Winds and a Clean Sweep

Observations with the NASA space-based telescope SPHEREX have led to the discovery of another 77 examples of quasars with high redshift, indicating that they originated billions of years ago when the universe was at its peak activity in terms of star formation. Crucially, these objects are those that shine very brightly with light but poorly with hot dust; thus, they must be dispersing the hot dust surrounding them. Scientists had already found compelling evidence of molecular gas flows at 500 km/sec to 1,000 km/sec in reddened quasars.