A TEAM of astronomers is claiming the first sighting of a new-born quasar
swaddled in a thick cloud of dust. “People have been looking for these things
for a long time,” says team leader Colin Norman of Johns Hopkins University in
Baltimore. Other astronomers, however, dispute the American claim.
Quasars are extremely bright sources of radiation, which astronomers believe
are powered by giant black holes that feed on the stars, gas and dust that
surround them. Until now, all the quasars found shine brightly in visible light
as well as X-rays, says Norman. But in the 1980s, astronomers predicted a…
