Milky Way Gas Cloud Causes Multiple Images of Distant Quasar

For the first time, astronomers have seen the image of a distant quasar split into multiple images by the effects of a cloud of ionized gas in our own Milky Way Galaxy. Such events were predicted as early as 1970, but the first evidence for one now has come from the National Science Foundation's Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) radio telescope system. Purdue University physics professor Matthew Lister led the team that made this discovery.

For full National Radio Astronomy Observatory release go to http://www.nrao.edu/pr/2013/quasarcloud/template2009.shtm