Quasars
The picture below is from a Don Dixon painting used for a Scientific American cover in June, 1998. It illustrates what we believe the appearance of a quasar would be like.
According to Wikipedia a quasar (contraction of QUASi-stellAR radio sources) is an astronomical object that looks like a star in optical telescopes (i.e. it is a point source), and has a very high redshift.
Quasars are very interesting because they don't act like anything else that we know of. For example, it is believed that quasars are the most distant objects in the Universe that we're aware of. This belief is based on the extreme red shift in the radiation we receive from them. This distance means that the light we perceive would have been generated billions of years ago--they're that far away.
Oddly enough quasars also would seem to be small--though that's a relative term. Since an average quasar puts out more energy than 10 typical galaxies anything smaller than a galaxy is small for that power output. Quasars also change their energy output and at a speed fast enough for us to be aware of. That's another indicator of small size.
Well, I'd best go to bed. For some reason I was just thinking about quasars.
According to Wikipedia a quasar (contraction of QUASi-stellAR radio sources) is an astronomical object that looks like a star in optical telescopes (i.e. it is a point source), and has a very high redshift.Quasars are very interesting because they don't act like anything else that we know of. For example, it is believed that quasars are the most distant objects in the Universe that we're aware of. This belief is based on the extreme red shift in the radiation we receive from them. This distance means that the light we perceive would have been generated billions of years ago--they're that far away.
Oddly enough quasars also would seem to be small--though that's a relative term. Since an average quasar puts out more energy than 10 typical galaxies anything smaller than a galaxy is small for that power output. Quasars also change their energy output and at a speed fast enough for us to be aware of. That's another indicator of small size.
Well, I'd best go to bed. For some reason I was just thinking about quasars.
Comments
Lois Lane
At current gas prices, no one will make off with the car we drove up here (my daughter's Expedition). At a whopping 10 mpg - no one would want it, would they?
I worded my post oddly - we drove up, my granddaughter(her niece) and I are flying back to Raleigh, and my daughter will drive back to her new home.
Even if not, quasars are fascinating, and I love the image.
why did you remove so many posts? And why haven't you been posting for so long?
Hope you had a great summer and everything is fine. Been extremely busy myself and thought it was a glitch when I dropped in previously and saw the last post was from end of March!?
Have a great day!
Here for a visit since I havent done that in a long time!
Hope all is well!
Where have you gone Dave? I miss you?