Observing the brightest objects in the Universe

https://www.youtube.com/live/jd_bC9iGrJ0

Quasars are the brightest known objects in the visible universe. They are so bright that they outshine the entire galaxy they sit in and are useful in all areas of astronomy, especially cosmology where they can be used as a probe for the early Universe. Most quasars appear very blue, but there are some that show much redder colours. These “red quasars” could be an important link in galaxy evolution and so understanding their properties is very important. I am part of two major spectroscopic campaigns: the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI), an optical spectrograph that has already observed over a million quasars, and the Multi-Object Optical-to-Near-infrared Spectrograph (MOONS), an upcoming infrared spectrograph on the Very Large Telescope. In this talk I will discuss how we can use spectroscopy to understand how quasars evolve and how they may affect their host-galaxies.

Vicky is an observational astronomer at Newcastle University researching quasars, which are extremely bright galaxies powered by supermassive black holes. She completed her PhD at Durham University in 2022 and has recently accepted a position at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in Garching, Munich. Outside of research Vicky enjoys public engagement, running school workshops and giving public lectures.

Banner image credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser