Zooming-in on the remote quasar P172+18

This video sequence starts from a wide-field view of the region of the sky around P172+18 and closes in on the very distant quasar, a bright object that lies at the centre of a remote galaxy and is powered by a supermassive black hole. The galaxy itself is surrounded by a very large bubble of ionised gas; artist's impressions of both the bubble and the galaxy are seen in the sequence. The final view is an artist’s impression of the quasar and its radio jets.