Bright halos around distant quasars

This mosaic shows 18 of the 19 quasars observed by an international team of astronomers, led by the ETH Zurich, Switzerland. Each observed quasar is surrounded by a bright gaseous halo. It is the first time that a survey of quasars shows such bright halos around all of the observed quasars.

The discovery was made using the MUSE instrument at ESO’s Very Large Telescope.