[1] This is a luminous active galactic nucleus (AGN) with a redshift of (z) 0.184, first discovered by astronomers conducting the Pico dos Dias survey in 1997.

[2][3][4] The object is known to have prototypical ionized ultra-fast X-ray outflows[5] and a bolometric luminosity value of 1047 erg s−1.

Based on observations, it showed a flux increase by a factor 4, including its time-scale doubling and a high level of flare energy, exceeding 1051 erg.

[9] Radio images by very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) found PDS 456 has a complex nucleus described to be radio-emitting, an extended structure and a jet.

[10] In 2019, observations by the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) found PDS 456 to contain kiloparsec-scale molecular outflows.