Quasar Animation

A Survey of Quasar Host Galaxies

Quasars reside in a variety of galaxies, from normal to highly disturbed. When seen through ground-based telescopes, these compact, enigmatic light sources resemble stars, yet they are billions of light-years away and several hundred billion times brighter than normal stars. The...

A Quasar's Companion Galaxy (left) and Galaxy Nucleus (right)

Images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope have allowed astronomers to clearly see the link between quasars and their companion galaxies. Some quasars, such as the one in this two-panel image, have been caught in the act of merging or colliding with their companion galaxies. The...