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Questions tagged [quasars]

Questions about quasi-stellar radio sources, active galactic nuclei that are far away and quite old.

2 votes
1 answer
292 views

How bright in the night sky would J0529-4351 (brightest quasar ever found) be if it were in our galaxy?

According to this article, the quasar (black hole) named J0529-4351 is the most luminous object in the known universe, being: 500 trillion times more luminous than the Sun To put it in terms easier ...
Ahmed Tawfik's user avatar
3 votes
1 answer
97 views

Is the code that produces the SDSS DR16Q quasar catalogue available?

I'm curious if it's available to investigate (from my question in the title), or even better, modify and re-run. See SDSS DR16Q quasar catalogue. Not the data itself, that's in a fits file. The code ...
MikeHelland's user avatar
4 votes
2 answers
415 views

On the "periodic" lightcurves of Active Galactic Nuclei

So apparently they are all lightcurves of (likely candidates) Active Galactic Nuclei and in some way or the other they all appear to be periodic: I'd like to know the reason for this and the ...
Ambica Govind's user avatar
10 votes
2 answers
2k views

What is the mechanism through which mass is converted to thermal energy in the accretion disc of a black hole?

In the book The Cosmic Perspective, it is stated that as matter is falling into a supermassive black hole, up to $40\%$ of its mass are converted to thermal energy, making the accretion of matter ...
Vercassivelaunos's user avatar
0 votes
0 answers
42 views

Trying to understand how to properly implement this equation to a healpix map

So i am working on reproducing a paper (Secrest, N. J., von Hausegger, S., Rameez, M., Mohayaee, R., Sarkar, S., & Colin, J. (2021). A test of the cosmological principle with quasars. The ...
qasidaleem's user avatar
7 votes
1 answer
72 views

What "external illumination" source causes the heating of a quasar's accretion disc?

In Section 3.4, UV-to-optical continuum flux ratio, Gaskell et al. (2023) Estimating reddening of the continuum and broad-line region of active galactic nuclei: the mean reddening of NGC 5548 and the ...
Jim421616's user avatar
  • 2,600
2 votes
2 answers
365 views

Reduced chi square value

I am currently plotting a continuum of observed data. I need to check the effectiveness of the fitted continuum with the reduced chi-square method. Ideally, should the reduced chi-square value ...
summer's user avatar
  • 31
1 vote
0 answers
29 views

Are there any experiments or observations indicating that the Hubble flow can influence AGNs, quasars and galactic winds (outflows)?

Galactic winds (or outflows) are produced by AGNs (Active Galactic Nuclei), quasars, supernovas...etc which basically eject matter usually in form of waves or spheres, sometimes even arriving to the ...
vengaq's user avatar
  • 1,017
3 votes
1 answer
63 views

Can the Hubble expansion inject energy in AGN and quasar outflows?

I found this article about the behavior of quasar outflows in cosmology and how they can create a magnetic field. In section 2.1.4., the authors say that when a quasar produces a "wave" or ...
vengaq's user avatar
  • 1,017
15 votes
3 answers
4k views

What happens when the quasar remnants reach Earth in 3 million years?

According to this article (A quasar Milky Way six million years ago?), during: (during) a quasar stage in its evolution (6 million years ago) ... the Milky Way’s central black hole swallowed a huge ...
RonJohn's user avatar
  • 409
9 votes
1 answer
581 views

What does "Effective radius of [CII] line is 1.4 kpc" mean?

A recent paper (A dusty compact object bridging galaxies and quasars at cosmic dawn) describes one of their results as the "Effective radius of [CII] line" (Extended Data Table 2, p38): I ...
Jim421616's user avatar
  • 2,600
3 votes
1 answer
543 views

Could life develop in a galaxy with a quasar at its centre?

Quasars are a type of Active Galactic Nucleus that inhabit the centres of some galaxies. They are among the most energetic objects known in the universe, emitting up to a thousand times the energy ...
Dave Gremlin's user avatar
  • 1,071
2 votes
1 answer
183 views

How to convert spectra to log-wavelength and interpolate them into linear spacing in log-wavelength

I want to write a function that cross correlates a spectrum with a quasar template I’d like to ask you how can I convert my flux density vs wavelength spectrum to log-wavelength. It’s not clear to me ...
Q Wolf's user avatar
  • 23
3 votes
1 answer
162 views

Intergalactic Lyman-alpha absorption for high redshift quasars (Gunn-Peterson effect)

This is a follow up to a recent question on SE asking about the apparent suppression of radiation shortward of the (red-shifted) Ly-$\alpha$ line of a quasar at redshift $z=6.53$. The general ...
Thomas's user avatar
  • 3,504
4 votes
2 answers
176 views

How to interpret this spectrum of the "new DESI Quasar at z = 6.53"; what causes the big edge at about 9150 Angstroms?

I'm not exacty sure why but Scitech Daily's Seeing Dark Energy’s True Colors: DESI Creates Largest 3D Map of the Cosmos includes the graphic and caption below. It indicates a quasar in a Hubble image ...
uhoh's user avatar
  • 30.7k

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