-
Before Radio Astronomy, what we knew about the solar system was limited to objects that were visible. Until we could listen to radio waves.
-
Astronomers Allan Sandage and Thomas Matthews discovered a blue object that resembled a star, that sends out particularly intense radio waves.
-
Maarten Schmidt proved what the radio waves were exactly, when he spotted a similar pattern. It was named Quasar because of the attempt to pronounce the acronym QASR.
-
In 1979 the gravitational lens effect predicted by Einstein's General Theory of Relativity was confirmed observationally for the first time with images of the double quasar.
-
The Hubble telescope spotted a faint quasar billions of light years away from earth. This peticular quasar, is speeding away from Earth at around 150,000 miles/second and is 6 million times fainter in appearance than a bright star.
-
Using a 200-inch telescope astronomers detected a quasar farther away from earth than ever seen before. It is about 12 billion light years away.
-
Across 600 million light years, quasars and galaxies have clustered to create what astronomers believe may be the largest structure in the observable universe.
-
In 2006, astronomers using the Chandra X-ray Observatory found out how Quasars turn on. The study in 2006 found that an interaction/collision between two galaxies has gas go toward the central region of the crash, where it triggers a huge burst of star formation. It also provides the fuel for the growth of a central black hole. The inflow of gas into the black hole releases so much energy, a quasar is born.
-
<"1963: Maarten Schmidt Discovers Quasars." Everyday Cosmology. Observatories of the Carnegie Institution for Science, n.d. Web. 12 Dec. 2013>.
<"Aug. 5, 1962: First Quasar Discovered." Conde Nast Digital, 05 Aug. 2010. Web. 12 Dec. 2013>.
<Comins, Neil F. "Discovering the Universe: From the Stars to the Planets." Google Books. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Dec. 2013>.
<"Hubble Telescope Observes Distant Quasar." New York Times 5 Nov. 1990. Science in Context. Web. 12 Dec. 2013.> -
<"Bigger than a breadbox, or anything else." New York Times 9 Jan. 2001: A1. Science in Context. Web. 13 Dec. 2013.>
<"SCIENCE WATCH; Farthest Quasar Found." New York Times 27 Aug. 1991. Science in Context. Web. 12 Dec. 2013.>
<"Quasars." World of Earth Science. Ed. K. Lee Lerner and Brenda Wilmoth Lerner. Detroit: Gale, 2007. Science in Context. Web. 12 Dec. 2013.>
<Trimble, VIrginia, and Lodewijk Woltjer. "Quasars at 25." Science 234 (1986): 155+. Science in Context. Web. 12 Dec. 2013.>
