Radio signals from a faraway galaxy containing a black hole at its core were detected by a Japanese astronomy team.

This finding is unusual because of difficulties with telescoping technology. The anomaly, designated 3C273, is a quasar near the heart of its host galaxy.

A quasar is a black hole rooted in a galaxy, ingesting all matter and even light – but 3C273 is still remarkably luminous.

It is the most-studied quasar in the night sky and is located 2.4 billion light-years from Earth.

First detected in 1963, it was the first quasar ever found.

Radio telescopes have difficulty concentrating on bright objects such as 3C273.

The blinding brightness of a car’s headlight makes it difficult to notice darker surroundings. The same phenomenon occurs when seeing bright objects with a telescope.

Quasar 3C273 observed by the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) (left). The exceeding brightness results in radial leaks of light created by light scattered by the telescope. At the lower right is a high-energy jet released by the gas around the central black hole. | Radio image of 3C273 observed by ALMA, showing the faint and extended radio emission (in blue-white color) around the nucleus (right). The bright central source has been subtracted from the image. The same jet as the image on the left can be seen in orange. Credit: Komugi et al., NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope

Researchers at the ALMA Observatory have devised methods for studying the obscuring host galaxy.

This is the first finding of its type, a structure of radio waves spanning tens of thousands of lightyears across the galaxy.

Radio waves are fueled in part by hydrogen gas. Hydrogen gas is essential to the formation of stars. The researchers determined that the quasar has little influence on the creation of stars.

“By applying the same technique to other quasars, we expect to understand how a galaxy evolves through its interaction with the central nucleus,” a researcher leading the study said.

Reference(s): Research Paper, Phys.org