S5 0014+81 is classified as a blazar, which is a subtype of quasar. This is a supermassive black hole at the centre of a galaxy. As matter spirals inward, it forms an accretion disk heated to extreme temperatures, producing enormous luminosity across the electromagnetic spectrum. What makes S5 0014+81 a blazar rather than a regular quasar is its orientation in space. It’s blasting out jets (narrow beams of particles accelerated to velocities close to the speed of light), and one of these is pointed almost directly toward Earth. This alignment makes it a lot brighter to us than if it were pointing in a different direction. In fact, it’s more than 25,000 times as luminous as every star in our Milky Way Galaxy combined! The fact that it looks like a faint dot is just because it’s unfathomably far away.

The light in my photo has been travelling for approximately 11.6 billion years, and during that time the universe has also been expanding, meaning S5 0014+81 is now 22 billion light-years from Earth. It’s among the most distant objects possible to see. However, thanks to those jets shining right at us, it’s just about possible to glimpse S5 0014+81 through all of Bristol’s light pollution even in a single 2-minute subframe.

S5 0014+81 is so far away, we’re observing it during an era when galaxies were still assembling. In fact, the universe was only around 2.2 billion years old, which is roughly 16% of its current age. So, S5 0014+81 is one of the most energetic and distant phenomena accessible to astronomers, and capturing its light is effectively recording radiation emitted when the universe was still in its formative stages. Mind-blowing stuff!