Blindingly Bright Black Holes Could Help Cosmologists See Deeper into the Universe’s Past

Charlie Wood writes for Popular Science about astronomers keen to solve some of the universe’s most fundamental mysteries. They have their eyes on a new target: quasars, tempests of matter that swirl violently around colossal black holes and pierce the cosmos with their brilliant light. These poorly understood galactic cores outshine just about every other object in the universe. Visible across unthinkable distances, they could turn out to be just what researchers need to understand certain traits of the entire cosmos, including its expansion. Early attempts to harness the mighty spotlights have been plagued with uncertainties, but a new…