They also have the largest red shift of any other objects in the cosmos. Astronomers are able to measure speed and distance of far away objects by measuring the spectrum of their light. If the colors of this spectrum are shifted toward the red, this means that the object is moving away from us. The greater the red shift, the farther the object and the faster it is moving. Since quasars have such a high red shift, they are extremely far away and are moving away from us at extremely high speeds.
Quasars are, in fact, the most distant objects to ever be detected in the universe.
We know that light travels a certain distance in a year. Quasars are so far away that the light we see when we observe them has been traveling for billions of years to reach us. This means that quasars are the among the most ancient objects known in the universe. The most distant quasars observed so far are over 10 billion light years away. This means we are seeing them as they appeared 10 billion years ago.