Overview
- The Euclid Consortium reported on July 6, 2026 that the Euclid space telescope identified 31 quasars from the universe’s first several hundred million years, including two new highest-redshift objects at z = 7.77 and z = 7.69.
- Candidates were picked from Euclid’s wide near-infrared survey using machine-learning classifiers and then confirmed with ground-based spectroscopic follow-up at Keck, Magellan and the Large Binocular Telescope.
- The new sample more than doubles the number of known quasars at redshift ≳7 and shifts work from single extreme examples to statistical studies of typical early quasars and their hosts.
- The discoveries deepen the puzzle of how supermassive black holes grew to hundreds of millions or billions of solar masses so quickly and have triggered approved follow-up programs with JWST, ALMA and other facilities to measure black-hole masses and host-galaxy properties.
- Euclid’s six-year Wide Survey will cover more than one-third of the sky and is expected to find many more high-redshift quasars, while initial follow-up already shows at least one quasar sits in a dusty, gas-rich, strongly star-forming galaxy during the epoch of reionization.