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The glowing dusty heart of a hidden quasar

The torus of dust surrounding a quasar — a very luminous supermassive black hole that accretes matter from its surroundings — has now been captured with high-resolution infrared imaging.
  1. Robert Antonucci

    1. Robert Antonucci is in the Department of Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106, USA.

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An active galactic nucleus is a relatively tiny region at the centre of some galaxies that has abnormally high luminosity. Quasars are the most powerful active galactic nuclei. Writing in Nature, Gámez Rosas et al.1 report very sharp and sensitive imaging of a nearby active galactic nucleus, showing a glowing doughnut-shaped object surrounding the central black hole.

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Nature 602, 390-391 (2022)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-00380-4

Updates & Corrections

  • Correction 24 February 2022: The article incorrectly said that one parsec is 3.08 light years. The correct conversion is 3.26 light years.

References

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Competing Interests

The author declares no competing interests.

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