Roberto Decarli

When the universe was a couple of hundred million years old, it resembled a giant kitchen where the first galaxies were being shaped from primordial 'dough'—hydrogen and helium. At their centers, black holes ignited like ovens of varying power, from light 'camp stoves' to heavy 'hearths.' But how quickly did they gain mass by swallowing surrounding gas?

In the grand hall of the cosmic masquerade, quasars are the most skilled actors. They don disguises, change their makeup, and pass themselves off as something they are not. Two such impostors caught astronomers' eyes: both claimed to be gravitationally lensed quasars in the early Universe, but scrutiny unmasked them.