Astronomers discover a puzzling quasar with a giant starburst A team of researchers from Australia, USA and the UK has discovered a quasar with one of the most luminous starbursts ever seen.
Quasars are galaxies with extremely bright centres.
Since their discovery in 1963, quasars have been a mystery because they emit astonishing amounts of energy from a very compact source. The most widely accepted explanation is that this energy is caused by the destruction of stars as they funnel down a black hole at the centre of the galaxy. Over the past year, the team has discovered more than 100 new quasars. One of the newly discovered quasars was unique. Starbursts are events that create stars in a huge firestorm, normally as a gas cloud collapses.