At a distance of 2 billion light years from our home is the most powerful and deadly object in our entire universe. A quasar is a dazzling beam of energy that spans several billion kilometers. Scientists cannot fully study this object.
What is a quasar
Today, astronomers around the world are trying to study quasars, their origin and principle of operation. Numerous studies prove that a quasar is a huge, endlessly moving cauldron of deadly gas. The most powerful source of the object's energy is located inside, in the very heart of the quasar. This is a huge black hole. A quasar weighs as much as billions of suns.
Quasar consumes everything that comes in its path. A black hole shatters entire stars and galaxies, sucking them into itself until they are completely erased and dissolved into it. To date, a quasar is the worst thing that can only be in the universe.
Deep space objects
Quasars are the most distant and brightest objects in the universe studied by mankind. In the 60s of the last century, scientists considered them radiostars, because they were discovered using the strongest source of radio waves. The term "quasar" comes from the phrase "quasi-stellar radio source". You can also find the name QSOs in numerous works of scientists about space. As the power of optical radio telescopes became much greater, astronomers discovered that a quasar is not a star, but a star-shaped object unknown to science.
It is assumed that the radio emission does not come from the quasar itself, but from the rays with which it is surrounded. Quasars are still one of the most mysterious objects that are located far beyond the galaxy. To date, few people can talk about quasars. What it is and how these celestial bodies are arranged, only the most experienced astronomers and scientists can answer. The only thing that has been accurately proven is that quasars emit a huge amount of energy. It is equal to that emitted by 3 million suns! Some quasars emit 100 times more energy than all the stars in our Galaxy combined. Interestingly, the quasar produces all of the above in an area approximately equal to the solar system.
Emission and magnitude of quasars
Traces of previous galaxies have been found around quasars. They were recognized as redshifted objects that have electromagnetic radiation along with radio waves and invisible light, and have very small angular dimensions. Before the discovery of quasars, these factors made it impossible to distinguish their stars - point sources. On the contrary, extended sources are more likelycorrespond to the shape of galaxies. For comparison, the average magnitude coefficient of the brightest quasar is 12.6, and the brightest star is 1.45.
Where are the mysterious celestial objects
Black holes, pulsars and quasars are far enough away from us. They are the most distant celestial bodies in the universe. Quasars have the largest infrared radiation. Using spectral analysis, astronomers are able to determine the speed of movement of various objects, the distance between them and to them from the Earth.
If the radiation of a quasar turns red, it means that it is moving away from the Earth. The more reddening - the farther from us the quasar and its speed increases. All kinds of quasars move at very high speeds, which, in turn, change endlessly. It has been proven that the speed of quasars reaches 240,000 km/sec, which is almost 80% of the speed of light!
We won't see modern quasars
Since these are the most distant objects from us, today we observe their movements that took place billions of years ago. Because the light only managed to get to our Earth. Most likely, the most distant, and therefore the most ancient, are quasars. Space allows us to see them as they only appeared about 10 billion years ago. It can be assumed that some of them have already ceased to exist today.
What are quasars
Although this phenomenon has not been studied enough, but, according to preliminary data, a quasar is a huge black hole. Hermatter accelerates its movement when the funnel of the hole draws in matter, which leads to the heating of these particles, their friction against each other and the endless movement of the total mass of matter. The speed of the quasar molecules is getting faster every second, and the temperature is getting higher. The strong friction of the particles causes the release of a huge amount of light and other types of radiation, such as x-rays. Every year, black holes can absorb a mass equal to one of our Sun. As soon as the mass drawn into the death funnel is absorbed, the released energy will spill out in radiation in two directions: along the south and north poles of the quasar. Astronomers call this unusual phenomenon "space plane".
Recent observations of astronomers show that these celestial objects are mostly located in the center of elliptical galaxies. According to one theory of the origin of quasars, they are a young galaxy in which a massive black hole absorbs the matter surrounding it. The founders of the theory say that the source of radiation is the accretion disk of this hole. It is located in the center of the galaxy, and from this it follows that the red spectral shift of quasars is greater than the cosmological one exactly by the value of the gravitational shift. This was previously predicted by Einstein in his general theory of relativity.
Quasars are often compared to the beacons of the universe. They can be seen from the farthest distances, thanks to them they study its evolution and structure. With the help of a "celestial beacon" they study the distribution of any substance along the line of sight. Namely:the strongest hydrogen absorption lines are transformed into absorption redshift lines.
Versions of scientists about quasars
There is another scheme. A quasar, according to some scientists, is an emerging young galaxy. The evolution of galaxies is little studied, since humanity is much younger than they are. Perhaps quasars are an early state of galaxy formation. It can be assumed that the release of their energy comes from the youngest cores of active new galaxies.
Other astronomers even consider quasars to be points in space where the new matter of the Universe originates. Their hypothesis proves the exact opposite of a black hole. It will take humanity a long time to study the stigmata of quasars.
Known quasars
The first quasar discovered was discovered by Matthews and Sandage in 1960. It was located in the constellation Virgo. Most likely, it is associated with the 16 stars of this constellation. After three years, Matthews noticed that this object had a huge redshift. The only thing that proved it wasn't a star was its release of a lot of energy in a relatively small area of space.
Observations of humanity
The history of quasars began with the study and measurement of visible angular dimensions of radioactive sources using a special program.
In 1963, there were already about 5 quasars. In the same year, Dutch astronomers proved the spectral shift of the lines to the red spectrum. They proved thatthis is due to a cosmological shift as a result of their separation, so the distance could be calculated using Hubble's law. Almost immediately, two more scientists, Yu. Efremov and A. Sharov, discovered the variability of the brightness of the discovered quasars. Thanks to photometric images, they found that the variability has a periodicity of only a few days.
One of the closest quasars to us (3C 273) has a redshift and brightness corresponding to a distance of approximately 3 mlrd. light years. The most distant celestial objects are hundreds of times more luminous than ordinary galaxies. They are easy to register with modern radio telescopes at a distance of 12 billion light years or more. A new quasar was recently detected at a distance of 13.5 billion light years from Earth.
It is difficult to accurately calculate how many quasars have been discovered to date. This happens both because of the constant discoveries of new objects, and because of the lack of a clear boundary between active galaxies and quasars. In 1987, a list of registered quasars was published in the amount of 3594, in 2005 there were more than 195 thousand of them, and today their number has exceeded 200 thousand.
Initially, the term "quasar" meant a certain class of objects that are very similar to a star in the visible (optical) range. But they have a number of differences: the strongest radio emission and small angular dimensions (< 100).
Such an initial idea of these bodies developed at the time of their discoveries. And it's true even now, but stillscientists have also identified radio-quiet quasars. They do not create such strong radiation. As of 2015, about 90% of all known objects have been registered.
Today, the stigmata of quasars are determined by the red shift of the spectrum. If a body is found in space that has a similar displacement and emits a powerful flow of energy, then it has every chance to be called a "quasar".
Conclusion
Today, astronomers have about two thousand such celestial bodies. The main instrument for studying quasars is the Hubble Space Telescope. Since the technical progress of mankind cannot but rejoice with its success, it can be assumed that in the future we will solve the riddle of what a quasar and a black hole are. Perhaps they are a kind of "garbage box" that absorbs all unnecessary objects, or maybe they are the centers and energy of the Universe.
