Quasars: The Light Fantastic

1. Quasars: The Light Fantastic Ryan Jacobsen Jesse Fowler Cap Mewborne

2. What is a quasar? • Quasars are produced by super massive black holes consuming matter in an acceleration disk. As the matter spins faster and faster, it heats up. • This friction built up by the particles gives off enormous amounts of light. • Quasars give off more energy than 100 galaxies combined!

3. Black Holes in Brief • In brief, a black hole is the cores of super massive stars and can best be described as regions of space where so much mass is concentrated that nothing, not even light, can escape the gravitational pull.

4. History of Quasars • The first quasar, 3C 273, was found in 1960 by T. Matthews and A. Sandage located in the constellation Virgo. • 3 years later, they noticed it had a extremely high red shift. • The true nature of this object became apparent when astronomers discovered that the intense energy was being produced in a relatively area. • Today, quasars are identified primarily by their red shift.

5. How a Quasar is named • Designations are formed from 1950.0 coordinates, Names are variable star names or entries from various catalogs (without number, the catalog lists the coordinates in column 1 as designation).

6. The Potential Ahead • Due to the almost infinite energy offered by Quasars, attempts will almost certainly be made to harness it, however the technology to even get an unmanned craft to a quasar, is a long way away.