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SDSS 0836+0054, 1030+0524, & 1306+0356:
Chandra Finds Well-Established Black Holes In
Distant Quasars
These three quasars, recently discovered at optical
wavelengths by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, are 13
billion light years from Earth, making them the most
distant known quasars. The X-rays Chandra detected were
emitted when the universe was only a billion years old,
about 7 percent of the present age of the
universe.
A surprising result was that the power output and
other properties of these quasars are similar to less
distant quasars. This indicates that the conditions
around these quasars' central supermassive black holes
must also be similar, contrary to some theoretical
expectations. As astronomer Smita Mathur of Ohio State,
who was involved in the research said, "Perhaps the most remarkable thing about them is that they are so absolutely unremarkable."
By various estimates, the supermassive black holes in
these quasars weighed in at somewhere between one and
10 billion times the mass of the Sun. The implication
is that the black holes put on a lot of weight soon
after the galaxies formed.
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Fast Facts for SDSS
0836+0054, 1030+0524, &
1306+0356:
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Credit
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NASA/CXC/PSU/N.Brandt et al.
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Scale
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Image is 1.61 arcmin for each panel.
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Category
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Quasars & Active Galaxies
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Coordinates
(J2000)
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SDSS 0836+0054: RA 8h 36m 43.9s | Dec
+00º 54' 55.1"
SDSS 1030+0524: RA 10h 30m 27.1s |
Dec +05º 24' 55.1"
SDSS 1306+0356: RA 13h 06m 08.3s |
Dec +03º 56' 26.3"
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Constellation
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SDSS 0836+0054:
Hydra
SDSS 1030+0524: Sextans
SDSS 1306+0356:
Virgo
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Observation
Date
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January 29, 2002
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Observation
Time
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1.6 hrs (SDSS 0836+0054); 2.2 hrs
(SDSS 1030+0524); 2.3 hrs (SDSS
1306+0356)
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Obs.
ID
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3359 (SDSS 0836+0054); 3357 (SDSS
1030+0524); 3358 (SDSS 1306+0356)
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Color
Code
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Intensity
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Instrument
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ACIS
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Distance
Estimate
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About 13 billion light years for all
three objects. SDSS 0836+0054 (redshift
z = 5.82); SDSS 1030+0525 (redshift z
= 6.28); SDSS 1306+0356 (redshift z =
5.99)
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Release Date
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March 28, 2002
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