Quasars

[uncledaddy]

I Found a Quasar!

I sent in a fuzzy blob, wondering if it was a nebula, and they replied telling me its a quasar with a redshift of 0.253. I told some of my physics tutors (who I'd already told about this site) and they were all congratulating me! Wikipedia says there's only 100,000 known quasars. I just wondered if this project is helping to identify more - a sort of bonus? I've been clicking on images of other fuzzy blobs to see if there's a high redshift and spikes in the spectrum, as the tutorial advises, and there seem to be a lot of candidates. 

[Nightblizzard]

I never understood Quasars... they're young, star forming galaxies which emit radio waves and light? Am I right? If so...I still don't understand what's so special about them.

[serpens]

I never understood Quasars... they're young, star forming galaxies which emit radio waves and light? Am I right? If so...I still don't understand what's so special about them.

They are the most energetic objects known. A quasar is a very early and extremely active galaxy, or more specifically, its nucleus. The surrounding galaxy cannot be spotted by usual means, but the quasar itself can, because it's that bright.

[Edd]

I just wondered if this project is helping to identify more - a sort of bonus?

Very sorry to disappoint on this one, but if they know it's a quasar and they know the redshift it's basically already discovered. They are amazing objects though.

Nightblizzard: It's as serpens says. A supermassive blackhole at a galaxy core can consume large amounts of matter and expel some of this in extremely powerful jets out of the galaxy. When we look down on one of these jets, we see a quasar. It's not related to star formation directly.

The energy produced is absolutely phenomenal and comes from a comparatively tiny volume of space. Real cosmic powerhouses.

Later in the galaxy's life the hole may stop consuming so much matter and become more quiescent. The hole at the core of our own galaxy for instance isn't pumping out energy like a quasar does.

[gcbosma]

on a sidenote: are black holes an accepted scientific fact, by now? is all doubt lifted from them? 

[Nightblizzard]

I just wondered if this project is helping to identify more - a sort of bonus?

Very sorry to disappoint on this one, but if they know it's a quasar and they know the redshift it's basically already discovered. They are amazing objects though.

Nightblizzard: It's as serpens says. A supermassive blackhole at a galaxy core can consume large amounts of matter and expel some of this in extremely powerful jets out of the galaxy. When we look down on one of these jets, we see a quasar. It's not related to star formation directly.

The energy produced is absolutely phenomenal and comes from a comparatively tiny volume of space. Real cosmic powerhouses.

Later in the galaxy's life the hole may stop consuming so much matter and become more quiescent. The hole at the core of our own galaxy for instance isn't pumping out energy like a quasar does.

So it's mostly a galaxy black-hole which emits a lot of energy? :) Thanks for all the help Serpens and Edd :)

[zookeeperKevin]

Yes, accreting suppermassive black holes are the most powerful sources of energy in the universe. They outshine the light of all the stars in their host galaxy and they are so luminous that we can see them across virtually the whole universe.

[Nightblizzard]

Yes, accreting suppermassive black holes are the most powerful sources of energy in the universe. They outshine the light of all the stars in their host galaxy and they are so luminous that we can see them across virtually the whole universe.

What we see is energy I guess, not light since it cannot escape a black hole? Well o-o the old question. Is light pure energy or is light a thing called "photon" x)

[zookeeperKevin]

Yes, accreting suppermassive black holes are the most powerful sources of energy in the universe. They outshine the light of all the stars in their host galaxy and they are so luminous that we can see them across virtually the whole universe.

What we see is energy I guess, not light since it cannot escape a black hole? Well o-o the old question. Is light pure energy or is light a thing called "photon" x)

The light doesn't come from inside the black hole, but from the accretion disk and jets that are outside (but still VERY close) to the black hole.

[Halibut]

So where's the link to this exciting quasar?? Maybe I've seen it too

[serpens]

Here are two candidate quasars in one field.
http://cas.sdss.org/astro/en/tools/explore/obj.asp?id=587728879793013199
http://cas.sdss.org/astro/en/tools/explore/obj.asp?id=587728879793013192

[Halibut]

Do quasars have to be blue?  If this is one, it appears to be orange.

http://cas.sdss.org/astro/en/tools/explore/obj.asp?id=587733079205937221

It's got a massive red shift.

[suprtrkr]

Do quasars have to be blue?  If this is one, it appears to be orange.

You gave us the wrong link. This' targeted as a galaxy with z=.061

[Halibut]

That is true...   Hang on... 

http://cas.sdss.org/astro/en/tools/explore/obj.asp?id=587726016684622005

That's the blue one with a big shift.

http://cas.sdss.org/astro/en/tools/explore/obj.asp?id=588848899929801047

And there's the orange one.

[mecurtin]

Well, if we're going to play quasar games, here's the farthest I've found so far:

http://cas.sdss.org/astro/en/tools/explore/obj.asp?id=588023046945898536



It wasn't fed to me by GZ, I came across it because I got the extremely stretched galaxy just below it in the picture and wondered if the galaxy was being distorted by something in the field. Clearly, this is not the case.

This quasar is at z=1.745, which means we're seeing it
http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/CosmoCalc.html
back when the Universe was about 1/4 its current age, and its receding at more than the speed of light ( ... brain ... hurts) and is what the universe-mappers
http://www.astro.princeton.edu/~mjuric/universe/
call "unreachable" (song cue).