For the very first time, a research team, which was made up of scientists from Penn State and Ohio State, managed to look inside of a quasar.

"Galaxies have black holes in the center of them. They are about two million times more massive than our sun," said Christopher Kochanek, head of the research group and a professor from Ohio State. "We can't see black holes by themselves, but when gases and other materials are spiraling into a black hole, they heat up, and we can see that. That is what a quasar is. Basically, it's a black hole that's eating."

This research is significant because it will help to credit or discredit some theories on what exactly surrounds a black hole.

It's important to test theories, Kochanek said. The researchers measured the size of the accretion disk by optical and X-ray and were able to confirm that black holes are surrounded by super heated materials and gases.

The research team used a novel technique to help them achieve better results and to collect more data.

"When we first started we didn't know how we would see [the quasar], but when we started to look at it we got multiple images of the same one and this led us to micolensing," George Chartas senior research associate at Penn State, said.

Micolensing involves having the Earth, a galaxy and the quasar that the researchers were interested in line with each other. The galaxy acts like a magnifying glass by bending the light of the quasar, and this helped them to get a better view of it, Chartas explained.

The idea of microlensing is possible due to Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity.

"Albert Einstein predicted that light could be bent by gravity, thus making possible 'gravitational lenses'; it would be possible to form magnified, multiple images of a single object," said Donald Schneider, Penn State professor of astronomy and astrophysics.

The research team has been working on this project for three years, and they wanted to measure the accretion disk, but they had to come up with a way to do it.

"The size of the disc region is very small. You can't see it with normal telescopes, so we employed the use of NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory," Kochanek said.

The X-ray camera was a joint collaboration between Penn State and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

"I think it is a good thing that an instrument that Penn State worked on is being used for important discoveries," Brian Pomeroy (senior-aerospace engineering) said.

Andrew Krause (junior-computer engineering) said he was impressed by the research team's finding. "I'm glad to see that Penn State is still on the forefront of scientific discovery."