Quasar Host Galaxy Markarian 231

This Hubble Space Telescope image reveals a bright starlike glow in the center of the interacting galaxy Markarian 231, the nearest quasar to Earth. Located 581 million light-years away, we are seeing the galaxy as it looked before multicelled life first appeared on Earth. Quasars are powered by a central black hole that heats the gas around it to unleash tremendous amounts of energy. Hubble spectroscopic observations infer the presence of two supermassive black holes whirling around each other. Because such a dynamic duo is found in the nearest quasar, it would imply that many quasars host binary-black-hole systems. It would be a natural result of a galaxy merger.

About the data

The Hubble image was created using HST data from proposal 10592 : A. Evans (University of Virginia, Charlottesville/NRAO/Stony Brook University). The galaxy pair was imaged with the ACS/WFC instrument with filters F435W (B) and F814W (I) on May 10, 2002.

The science team comprises: C.-S. Yan and Y. Lu (National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing), X. Dai (University of Oklahoma), and Q. Yu (Peking University).

Several Hubble archival spectral observations of Mrk 231 were used in these science findings: Proposal 3270 : PI: R. Angel (U. Arizona) Proposal 6799 : PI: D. Turnshek (U. Pittsburgh) Proposal 12569 : PI: S. Veilleux (U. Maryland)