Somewhere in this image is Quasar 3C 273, an extremely distant galaxy, but shines with the light of a near by star. When first discovered, the presented a paradox. In images they look like a star, but their red-shift, the amount their light is shifted towards the red side of a spectrum, suggested an object billions of light years away. The name quasar is a abbreviation from quasi-stellar object (QSO). 3C 273 was the first object to be identified as a quasar. It is one of the brightest and closest optical quasars to us at 2.4 billion light years away when the light left the object. A quasar is active galactic nucleus that is powered by supermassive black hole that is surrounded by an accretion disk with in falling material. The luminosity given off can be several thousand times brighter than an entire galaxy.
The quasar is also known as galaxy PGC 41121 and is near the very center of the image.
