PSS J0248+1802

PSS J0248+1802 known as QSO J0248+1802, is a quasar located in the constellation of Aries. With a redshift of 4.42, light from the object has taken at least 11.9 billion light-years to reach Earth. It was first discovered, along with four other new quasars within the redshift ranges of 4.0 <~ z <~ 4.8, by astronomers conducting the Second Palomar Sky Survey in 1995.

Characteristics
PSS J0248+1802 is one of the extremely luminous infrared galaxies found by Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE). With an infrared luminosity of LIR ≡ L(rest 8-1000 μm) > 1014 L⊙, PSS J0248+1802 shows a strong detections at 12 and 22 μm, when conducted by the WISE survey. With its spectral energy distribution dominated by emission with a rest-frame of 4-10 μm, suggesting that hot interstellar dust with Td ~ 450 K is mainly contributed for the high luminosity in the quasar. Such properties indicated PSS J0248+1802 is likely powered by a highly obscured active galactic nucleus (AGN). Furthermore, PSS J0248+1802 is one of the luminous quasars (M 1450 ≤ -26.5 m i ≤ 18.50) at z reg ≥ 2.8 by Pan-STARRS 1 Footprint (PS-ELQS), with a mean X-ray power-law photon index of Γ=1.92+0.09-0.08 and a constrained neutral intrinsic absorbing material contain a mean column density of NH<~2×1021 cm−2. As observed by researchers, it contains a Lyman continuum luminosity (L912) ranging from 1.06 × 1031 to 2.24 × 1032 erg s−1 Hz−1.