A massive galaxy (blue dot) warps the light emitted by an active black hole (orange dots) in a phenomenon called gravitational lensing. | Credit: NASA/ESA/CSA
The star-studded halo in the new image is made up of light from a quasar — a supermassive black hole at the heart of a young galaxy that shoots out powerful energy jets as it gobbles up enormous amounts of matter. This quasar, previously known to scientists, is named RX J1131-1231 and is located around 6 billion light-years from Earth in the constellation Crater, according to the European Space Agency (ESA).