QUASARS QUASISTELLAR RADIO SOURCES 10152012 Alec Fisher INTRODUCTION

QUASARS (QUASI-STELLAR RADIO SOURCES) 10/15/2012 Alec Fisher

• INTRODUCTION What are they? • How were they discovered, and by whom? • How do they work? • What do they say about our Universe? (2) Artists Rendition of a Quasar

THE DISCOVERY • The late 1950’s • Radio Telescopes • Lovell Telescope • No objects could be found to match radio signatures (3) The Dwingeloo Radio Telescope

3 C 48 - 1960 • First of these faint radio sources to have an object with it • Many unknown emission lines • Astronomer John Bolton said Red-Shifted (4) Quasar 3 C 48 viewed in the Radio Spec

3 C 273 - 1962 • Object was expected to make 5 occultations with the moon • Astronomers Cyril Hazard and John Bolton use Parkes Radio Telescope • Maarten Schmidt uses 200 inch Hale to obtain optical spectrum • Shifted Hydrogen

(5)Spectral lines becoming progressively more redshifted

• What does this huge redshift imply for qua • 3 C 48 red shifted. 378 and Quasars have be found with redshift as high as z=7 • Very far away • Farthest Quasar away is 12. 9 Billion light ye • Hubble’s Law

WHY SO LUMINOUS? • 3 C 273 has an absolute magnitude of -26. 7 and 4 trillion times brighter than the sun. • Most luminous objects in the known universe • Appear as point sources, like stars, as opposed to extended sources, such as galaxies • Unknown form of antimatter • White holes

WHAT EXACTLY ARE THESE OBJECTS? • Accretion disk models were successfully completed in the 1970 s • The energy emitted in relativity jets would explain why Quasars are so luminous • Can convert 10% of mass into energy, as opposed to p-p chain nuclear fusion.

ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEUS! • Quasi-stellar objects are the active nuclei inside newly formed galaxies. • Accretion disk on the supermassive black hole in the nucleus. • Periods of growth for the black hole. (6) An artists drawing of a Quasar and a Blazar

WHY AREN’T ALL GALAXIES QUASARS? • Need to consume at least 10 solar masses • Most Luminous consume 600 Earths a minute • Become normal galaxies after material is exhausted. (9) What we think the milky way galaxy looks like

HOW DOES THIS KNOWLEDGE HELP US? • Objects appear to us how they did at the beginning of the universe. • Lets us see how galaxies act at the beginning of their creation. • Proved Einstein’s theory of General Relativity.

(10) Curvature of Space-Time (11) Twin Quasar that proves Einstein’s T (12) The Einstein Cross

CONCLUSION • Quasars are active galactic nuclei that are extremely bright and distance, making them useful reference points in establishing a measurement grid on the night sky.

REFERENCES • (1)http: //en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Quasar#History_of_observation • (2)http: //www. google. com/imgres? q=quasar&num=10&um=1&hl=en&biw= 1600&bih=775&tbm=isch&tbnid=9 Hd. PRtq. Y 0 s. Gya. M: &imgrefurl • (3)http: //www. flickr. com/photos/59371508@N 07/galleries/721576282485187 59/ • (4)http: //en. wikipedia. org/wiki/3 C_48 • (5) http: //www. schoolphysics. co. uk/age 1416/Astronomy/text/Red_shift/index. html • (6)http: //astronomycentral. co. uk/most-distant-quasar-discovered/ • (7)http: //www. astronomy. com/en/News. Observing/Ask%20 Astro/2011/01/Blazar%20 vs, -d-, %20 quasar. aspx • (8)http: //en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Supermassive_black_hole • (9)http: //www. astronomy-blog. com/blogs/permalinks/8 -2006/hidden-milkyway-deuterium-found. html • (10)http: //en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Gravitational_lens • (11)http: //en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Twin_QSO • (12)http: //en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Einstein_Cross