This is Leicestershire --Physicists have created a new catalogue of the most exotic phenomenon in the universe.
The cosmic index maps more than 500,000 objects such as super-massive black holes, quasars and pulsars which spread to the edge to the observable universe.
Some of the objects produce a thousand billion times more power than our Sun.
Others, such as neutron stars, the remnants of dead stars, could be the mass of our Sun but crammed into a ball 10 kilometres in radius.
Electromagnetic radiation (X-rays) from the objects were picked up by the orbiting XMM-Newton telescope and catalogued by the University of Leicester.
The research, carried out over three years, found 531,261 X-ray-emitting cosmic objects.
Professor Mike Watson, of the University of Leicester, said: "The XMM-Newton mission is helping scientists solve a number of cosmic mysteries, ranging from the enigmatic black holes to the origins of the universe.
"Within the Milky Way there are probably a few hundred million X-ray-emitting stars.
"The number of more exotic objects is more modest, in the thousands.
"X-rays are detected from planets in our solar system – from Mars, Jupiter, Saturn – and also from some comets.
"Our Sun produces X-rays in its corona.
"But the main types of object that produce a lot of X-ray emissions include quasars and X-ray binary systems which contain a neutron star or black hole orbiting a more normal star."
The furthest source of X-rays discovered by Dr Watson and his team is 200 billion light years away and would have started emitting radiation when the universe was still in its infancy.
It has taken more than 12 billion years for the radiation to reach Earth and the sources themselves would have died out a long time ago.
However, the data from these quasars and pulsars gives astronomers a glimpse in to the early workings of the cosmos.
"In brief, the X-rays tell all about the physical condition of the object, for example its temperature and energy," said Dr Watson.
"Exotic objects such as pulsars, quasars – objects with powerful jets -–the remnants of supernovae, can all be studied through X-rays and some of these object types are best studied this way." Reported by This is 15 hours ago.