Noun modifier doubt

[HemantR606]

Hello All,

This is a part of the sentence in 12th edition OG SC Q.45.

"Quasars, at billions of light years from the Earth the most distant observable objects in the universe,..."

This is not the underlined part, but i was amused with the way the italicized part was used in this sentence. As far as I know, it must be an appositive, which is modifying the subject - "Quasars" . Isn't there a need for a comma after "Earth"?

Please help me understand this.


Thanks.

[RonPurewal]

to understand what's going on here, read this:
sc-by-merging-its-two-publishing-divisions-the-t8026-30.html#p108812

[RonPurewal]

on top of that, there's also a second reason for the inversion here. namely, if you put the two modifiers in the order you presumably have in mind...
Quasars, the most distant observable objects in the universe at billions of light years from Earth...
...then it can be (mis)read as saying that there is a "universe at billions of light years from Earth", and that quasars are the most distant things in that universe.