29 Jun 2011 21:34:23.283 Click here for full story With only an
estimated 100 bright quasars with a redshift of higher than 7 in
the whole sky, their discovery is an extremely rare find.
Nottingham’s Dr Simon Dye was on the team which made the
discovery, detailed in the June 30 2011 edition of the journal
Nature. Dr Dye said: “Objects that lie at such large distance
are almost impossible to find in visible-light surveys because
their light is stretched by the expansion of the universe. This
means that by the time their light gets to Earth, most of it
ends up in the infrared part of the electromagnetic spectrum.
“It took us five years to find this object. We were looking for
a quasar with a redshift higher than 6.5. Finding one this far
away, at a redshift higher than 7, was an exciting surprise.
This quasar provides a unique opportunity to explore a 100
million year window of the cosmos that was previously out of
reach.” Quasars are very bright and distant galaxies that are
believed to be powered by supermass