Quasars

In the 1960s it was observed that certain objects emitting radio waves but thought to be
stars had very unusual optical spectra. It was finally realized that the reason the spectra
were so unusual is that the lines were Doppler shifted by a very large amount,
corresponding to velocities away from us that were significant fractions of the speed of
light. The reason that it took some time to come to this conclusion is that, because these
objects were thought to be relatively nearby stars, no one had any reason to believe they
should be receding from us at such velocities.

Quasars and QSOs

These objects were named Quasistellar Radio Sources (meaning "star-like radio sources")
which was soon contracted to quasars. Later, it was found that many similar objects did not
emit radio waves. These were termed Quasistellar Objects or QSOs. Now, all of these are
often termed quasars (Only about 1% of the quasars discovered to date have detectable
radio emission).

Here are some Hubble Space Telescope quasar images, and the following figure shows the
quasar 3C273, which was the first quasar discovered and is also the quasar with the
greatest apparent brightness. It will be discussed further below.

The quasar 3C273. Left image shows the quasar and the jet. Right image superposes
on this contours of radio frequency intensity. The sharp radial lines from the quasar
are optical spike artifacts because of its brightness (Source).
Quasars Are Related to Active Galaxies

The quasars were deemed to be strange new phenomena, and initially there was
considerable speculation that new laws of physics might have to be invented to account for
the amount of energy that they produced. However, subsequent research has shown that
the quasars are closely related to the active galaxies that have been studied at closer
distances. We now believe quasars and active galaxies to be related phenomena, and that
their energy output can be explained using the theory of general relativity. In that sense,
the quasars are certainly strange, but perhaps are not completely new phenomena.

Quasar Redshifts Imply Enormous Distance and Energy Output

The quasars have very large redshifts, indicating by the Hubble law that they are at great
distances. The fact that they are visible at such distances implies that they emit enormous
amounts of energy and are certainly not stars. The following image from the Sloan Digital
Sky Survey shows the three most distant quasars known. The quasars are the faint red
smudges near the head of each arrow. Their redshift parameters are 4.75, 4.90, and 5.00
respectively, which places them at distances of about 15 billion light years (Ref).

The Energy Source of Quasars is Extremely Compact

Quasars are extremely luminous at all wavelengths and exhibit variability on timescales as
little as hours, indicating that their enormous energy output originates in a very compact
source. Here are some light curves at different wavelengths illustrating the variability in
intensity of some quasars and other active galaxies. Here is an explanation of these light
curves. In all cases, the timescale for variability of the light from an active galaxy sets an
upper limit on the size of the compact energy source that powers the active galaxy. These
limits are typically the size of the Solar System or smaller.

Some quasars emit radio frequency, but most (99%) are radio quiet. Careful observation
shows faint jets coming from some quasars. The above images of the quasar 3C273
illustrate both a jet in the optical image on the left and radio frequency emission associated
with the jet on the right. Here are some spectra of quasars and other active galaxies - see
the following description.

Relationship of Quasars and Active Galaxies

The quasars are thought to be powered by supermassive rotating black holes at their
centers. Because they are the most luminous objects known in the universe, they are the
objects that have been observed at the greatest distances from us. The most distant are so
far away that the light we see coming from them was produced when the Universe was only
one tenth of its present age.
The present belief is that quasars are actually closely related to active galaxies such as
Seyfert Galaxies or BL Lac objects in that they are very active galaxies with bright nuclei
powered by enormous rotating black holes. However, because the quasars are at such large
distances, it is difficult to see anything other than the bright nucleus of the active galaxy in
their case. As we have noted above, modern observations have begun to detect around some
quasars jets and evidence for the surrounding faint nebulosity of a galaxy-like object.

Evolution of Quasars

The standard theory is that

quasars turn on when there is
matter to feed their
supermassive black hole
engines at the center and turn
off when there is no longer fuel
for the black hole. Recent
Hubble Space Telescope
observations indicate that
quasars can occur in galaxies
that are interacting with each
other. This suggests the
possibility that quasars that
have turned off because they
have consumed the fuel
available in the original galaxy
may turn back on if the galaxy
hosting the quasar interacts
with another galaxy in such a Abundance of quasars as a function of the age of the
way to make more matter Universe (Source: Bill Keel).
available to the black hole.
Here is a recent survey of quasar host galaxies that sheds light on this issue.

Abundance of Quasars in the Early Universe

Looking at large distances in the Universe is equivalent to looking back in time because of
the finite speed of light. Thus, the observation of quasars at large distances and their
scarcity nearby implies that they were much more common in the early Universe than they
are now, as illustrated in the adjacent figure (see the Source for a further discussion of the
figure).

This is one piece of evidence that argues against the steady state theory of the Universe but
would be consistent with the big bang theory. We shall discuss this further below.

Hungry Black Holes

Notice that the greater abundance of quasars early in the Universe would be consistent
with the mechanism discussed above whereby a quasar shuts off when its black hole engine
has consumed the fuel available in the host galaxy. We would expect that generally in the
early Universe there may have been more mass easily accessible to the black hole than
later, after much of it had been consumed. Perhaps later quasars are more dependent on
interactions between galaxies to disturb mass distributions and cause galaxies to begin to
feed the hungry black hole

Artist’s impression of a quasar, a brilliant lighthouse in the early universe with a luminosity
trillions of times that of our own Sun, powered by a supermassive black hole. Image credit:
ESO/M. Kornmesser

Quasars — supermassive black holes found at the centre of distant massive galaxies — are the
most luminous beacons in the sky. These central supermassive black holes actively accrete the
surrounding materials and release a huge amount of their gravitational energy. An international
team of astronomers, including Carnegie’s Yuri Beletsky, has discovered the brightest quasar
ever found in the early universe, which is powered by the most massive black hole observed for
an object from that time. Their work is published February 26th by Nature.

The quasar was found at a redshift of z = 6.30. This is a measurement of how much the
wavelength of light emitted from it that reaches us on Earth is stretched by the expansion of the
universe. As such, it can be used to calculate the quasar’s age and distance from our planet. A
higher redshift means larger distance and hence looking further back in time.

At a distance of 12.8 billion light-years from Earth, this quasar was formed only 900 million
years after the Big Bang. Named SDSS J0100+2802, studying this quasar will help scientists
understand how quasars evolved in the earliest days of the universe. There are only 40 known
quasars that have a redshift of higher than 6, a point that marks the beginning of the early
universe.

“This quasar is very unique. Just like the brightest lighthouse in the distant universe, its glowing
light will help us to probe more about the early universe,” said team-leader Xue-Bing Wu of
Peking University and the Kavli Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics.

With a luminosity of 420 trillion that of our own Sun’s, this new quasar is seven times brighter
than the most distant quasar known (which is 13 billion light-years away). It harbours a black
hole with mass of 12 billion solar masses, proving it to be the most luminous quasar with the
most massive black hole among all the known high-redshift quasars.

The team developed a method of detecting quasars at redshifts of 5 and higher. These detections
were verified by the 6.5-metre Multiple Mirror Telescope (MMT) and 8.4-metre Large Binocular
Telescope (LBT) in Arizona; the 6.5-metre Magellan Telescope at Carnegie’s Las Campanas
Observatory in Chile; and the 8.2-metre Gemini North Telescope in Hawaii.

“This quasar is a unique laboratory to study the way that a quasar’s black hole and host galaxy
co-evolve,” Beletsky said. “Our findings indicate that in the early universe, quasar black holes
probably grew faster than their host galaxies, although more research is needed to confirm this
idea.”

I love it when scientists discover something unusual in nature.

They have no idea what it is, and then over decades of research, evidence builds, and scientists
grow to understand what's going on..

My favorite example? Quasars.

Astronomers first knew they had a mystery on their hands in the nineteen-sixties (1960s) when
they turned the first radio telescopes to the sky.

They detected the radio waves streaming off the Sun, the Milky Way and a few stars, but they
also turned up bizarre objects they couldn't explain.
These objects were small and incredibly bright.

They named them quasi-stellar-objects or "quasars", and then began to argue about what
might be causing them.

The first was found to be moving away at more than a third the speed of light.

But was it really?

Maybe we were seeing the distortion of gravity from a black hole, or could it be the white hole
end of a wormhole.

And If it was that fast, then it was really, really far... 4 billion light years away.

And it generating as much energy as an entire galaxy with a hundred billion stars.

What could do this?

Here's where Astronomers got creative.

Maybe quasars weren't really that bright, and it was our understanding of the size and
expansion of the Universe that was wrong.

Or maybe we were seeing the results of a civilization, who had harnessed all stars in their galaxy
into some kind of energy source.

Then in the 1980s, astronomers started to agree on the active galaxy theory as the source of
quasars.

That, in fact, several different kinds of objects: quasars, blazars and radio galaxies were all the
same thing, just seen from different angles.

And that some mechanism was causing galaxies to blast out jets of radiation from their cores.

But what was that mechanism?

We now know that all galaxies have supermassive black holes at their centers; some billions of
times the mass of the Sun.

When material gets too close, it forms an accretion disk around the black hole.

It heats up to millions of degrees, blasting out an enormous amount of radiation.

The magnetic environment around the black hole forms twin jets of material which flow out
into space for millions of light-years.

This is an AGN, an active galactic nucleus.

When the jets are perpendicular to our view, we see a radio galaxy. If they're at an angle, we
see a quasar.

And when we're staring right down the barrel of the jet, that's a blazar.

It's the same object, seen from three different perspectives.

Supermassive black holes aren't always feeding.

If a black hole runs out of food, the jets run out of power and shut down.

Right up until something else gets too close, and the whole system starts up again.

The Milky Way has a supermassive black hole at its center, and it's all out of food.

It doesn't have an active galactic nucleus, and so, we don't appear as a quasar to some distant
galaxy.

We may have in the past, and may again in the future.

In 10 billion years or so, when the Milky way collides with Andromeda, our supermassive black
hole may roar to life as a quasar, consuming all this new material.