Introduction
Are you ready for a cosmic adventure ? Hold on tight, because we are about to blast off in the extremely bright and wild world of Quasar ! Imagine an object that is as bright as the sun dazzling in the sky, but is located 33 light years away. Yes, this object is none other than a Quasar.
You must be curious and excited to know what these quasars really are, And here we are to tell you about The brightest object in the universe. So are you ready for the journey inside the deep world of Quasar’s, So let’s dive right in.
Table of content -
- Introduction
- What is Quasar ?
- History of discovery
- Formation
- How are quasars formed
- Characteristics and structure of Quasars
- Brightness and luminosity of quasars
- Spectral properties
- Relativistic Jets
- Brightest quasar in the universe
- Conclusion
What is a Quasar ?
Quasars are hot, dense and energetic Active galactic nucleus (AGN). Quasar full form is quasi-stellar radio source, Quasar’s are The brightest object known in the universe, They are present at the centre of the galaxy and are powered by the Supermassive black hole present in the centre of the galaxy. Quasar’s release an exceedingly large amount of Electromagnetic radiations like Gamma rays, X rays etc.
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| Quasar, Image source : Wikipedia |
Quasar is an extremely active galactic centre, as the matter present near the centre of the galaxy rotates around the super massive black hole; it heats up and then releases various electromagnetic radiation. This huge disc of matter is called a Quasar. Quasar are so powerful that they converts 6 % to 32% of mass into energy.
Quasar’s in simple language could be understood as cosmic beacon’s, shining brighter than anything around them. Most of the quasar’s we see were born near the start of the universe, thus light we see today was born when the universe was very young.
History of discovery
Back in the 1960s radio telescopes were mainly used for research, While scanning the sky astronomers found mysterious signals that stumped them at sight. At first they thought that it was a star but after continuous research and study it was found that signals were coming from a completely new and unknown object.
After much study of the signals it was found that rather than being a star it was a galaxy with an extremely bright galactic nucleus. Moreover it was found that these galaxies were very very far from us and were emitting more energy in a single second than our entire milky way does in an entire year. Astronomers named this object Quasi-stellar radio source, which now in short is called the Quasar.
Formation
How are Quasars formed ?
Quasar’s are mostly formed in a young or in a colliding galaxy. When the galaxy has much matter near its centre the Central supermassive black hole starts to pull all the matter towards it, as all the bulk of matter starts to get near the black hole it starts eat all the matter, but as the bulk of matter is present in large amount it is not able to accumulate all the matter at once.
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| Formation of Quasar, Image source : Forbes |
Due to intense gravitational pull and such a situation, the matter starts to rotate around the black hole at a very high speed. As the matter rotates around the black hole it starts to heat up thus releasing various electromagnetic radiation and energy. This Rotating disc of matter releasing energy and radiation is called The Quasar.
Characteristics and structure of Quasars
Brightness and luminosity of quasars
Quasars are the brightest object present in the universe, they are so bright that they can outshine an entire galaxy. Quasar emits a lot of energy and radiation which travels millions and billions of light years and still remains very bright. If a quasar is 33 light years away from us, it would still be as bright as our sun in the sky.
A normal Quasar has a brightness of 4 trillion times that of the sun, and 100 times the light of the Milky way. Quasar’s have luminosity between 10 to 10,000MW here MW represents luminosity of the milky way. 100 trillion sun’s packed into a tiny space would be equal to one quasar. After reading all this you could imagine how bright quasars are.
Spectral properties
If you are new to astronomy you may not know what spectral property is, so spectral property refers to the spectrum of an object. When light from an object reaches us, we spread the light and find its constituent colours, these constituent colours are called spectrum of object. Different elements release different light thus identifying the spectrum helps to know the constituent of the object.
Quasar’s show a lot of intense emission lines along with this oldest quasar’s show some kind of absorption which tells that universe was mainly made up of neutral. gases, and new quasar’s don’t show such a property. Older Quasar also show presence of elements heavier than helium, thus we understand that high star formation was taking place in the early universe.
Relativistic Jets
Along with being the brightest object in the universe, they also release extremely powerful cosmic relativistic jets. These Relativistic jets are released when excess matter comes in the accretion disc and starts rotating at a high speed, due to such a pressure upon the black hole it releases relativistic jets.
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| Relativistic jets, Image source : Wallpaper flare |
These relativistic jets have particles of gases and dust incredibly hot and moving with a speed which is close to the speed of light, and these jets can travel distance upto 1.3 million light years. Such Jets play a vital role in galactic evolution, they heat up the surrounding gases and prevent gases from entering the black hole. They also increase the star formation rate in the galaxy.
When observed from earth few quasars look brighter than others, this is caused as the jets are directly aimed towards earth, This causes them to look brighter, this kind of quasar’s are called Blazars.
Brightest quasar in the universe
The brightest quasar found till January 2023 is the quasar 3C 273; it is located in the constellation virgo. This quasar is 4 trillion times more luminous than the sun and the central supermassive black hole has a mass of 886 solar masses. This quasar is present in an elliptical galaxy, and the jet of this quasar is directly pointed towards earth. It has a distance of 2.5 billion light years from earth.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Quasar’s are incredible and fascinating objects that have captured the attention of astronomers and space lovers for decades. They are incredibly bright and emit a lot of energy and electromagnetic radiation.
They are the brightest and most luminous object present in the universe. Quasars have played an important role in understanding the early universe and with continued research we are sure to uncover even more intriguing information about these incredible and mysterious objects.
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