Euclid Discovers 31 Ancient Quasars, Revealing Fast-Growing Black Holes in the Early Cosmos

ESA’s Euclid space telescope found 31 ancient quasars dating to redshift 6.6–7.8, including two record-holders at z=7.77 and z=7.69, making them the oldest seen. Each hosts a billion-solar-mass black hole, existing when the universe was under a billion years old. The haul doubles the known number of such quasars and demonstrates Euclid’s unexpected capability to census the early cosmos, though how these enormous black holes formed so quickly remains a major puzzle. This is just the first major result from a six-year survey that could uncover many more distant quasars.