Andrew W. Blain

Quasar W2246–0526 is a beacon lit when the universe was just 1.3 billion years old. Its light has traveled 12.8 billion years to reach us, yet even at such a distance, astronomers have spotted what had eluded them for decades: the gravitational shadow of a black hole.

Two houses with identical facades but different interior layouts: from the outside the V-shaped spectrum looks the same, but inside there are different light sources and different amounts of dust. That is exactly how the two populations of distant galaxies that astronomers have long confused appear.