Double Quasar Discovered in Merging Galaxies with Supermassive Black Holes on Collision Course

Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope and other observatories have discovered a pair of gravitationally-bound quasars inside two merging galaxies. The bright quasars existed when the universe was just 3 billion years old. The research was published Wednesday in the journal Nature. The discovery is exciting as double quasars are not seen at this early time in the universe. The search required the combined efforts of the Hubble Telescope, Hawaii's W.M. Keck Observatories, and the International Gemini Observatory, among others.