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How soon after the big bang did the earliest known quasars form?
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Quasar
Six quasar host galaxies, as observed by the Hubble Space Telescope.
Shown are apparently normal, solitary galaxies (left), colliding galaxies (centre), and merging galaxies (right).
The earliest known quasars formed less than one billion years after the big bang.12
During this early era of the universe, the population of quasars was still in the process of building up. Scientists have observed supermassive black holes within these objects, indicating that such black holes formed and grew rapidly within that first billion-year timeframe.21