quasars – Quanta Magazine https://www.quantamagazine.org Illuminating science Mon, 16 Sep 2024 14:10:47 -0400 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.2 Galactic Beacons Get Snuffed Out in a Cosmic Eyeblink https://www.quantamagazine.org/why-changing-look-quasars-appear-to-vanish-20181121/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/why-changing-look-quasars-appear-to-vanish-20181121/#respond Wed, 21 Nov 2018 15:00:21 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=65521 The post Galactic Beacons Get Snuffed Out in a Cosmic Eyeblink first appeared on Quanta Magazine

]]> Stephanie LaMassa did a double take. She was staring at two images on her computer screen, both of the same object — except they looked nothing alike. The first image, captured in 2000 with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, resembled a classic quasar: an extremely bright and distant object powered by a ravenous supermassive black hole in the center of a galaxy. It was blue, with broad peaks of light.

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]]> https://www.quantamagazine.org/why-changing-look-quasars-appear-to-vanish-20181121/feed/ 0 A Short History of the Missing Universe https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-short-history-of-the-missing-universe-20180919/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-short-history-of-the-missing-universe-20180919/#respond Wed, 19 Sep 2018 14:25:09 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=63301 The post A Short History of the Missing Universe first appeared on Quanta Magazine

]]> The cosmos plays hide-and-seek. Sometimes, though, even when astronomers have a hunch for where their prey might hide, it can take them decades of searching to confirm it. The case of the universe’s missing matter — a case that appears to now be closed, as I reported earlier this month — is one such instance. To me, it is a fascinating tale in which clever cosmological models drew a treasure map...

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]]> https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-short-history-of-the-missing-universe-20180919/feed/ 0 The Last of the Universe’s Ordinary Matter Has Been Found https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-last-of-the-universes-ordinary-matter-has-been-found-20180910/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-last-of-the-universes-ordinary-matter-has-been-found-20180910/#respond Mon, 10 Sep 2018 17:42:23 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=62961 The post The Last of the Universe’s Ordinary Matter Has Been Found first appeared on Quanta Magazine

]]> Astronomers have finally found the last of the missing universe. It’s been hiding since the mid-1990s, when researchers decided to inventory all the “ordinary” matter in the cosmos — stars and planets and gas, anything made out of atomic parts. (This isn’t “dark matter,” which remains a wholly separate enigma.) They had a pretty good idea of how much should be out there...

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]]> https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-last-of-the-universes-ordinary-matter-has-been-found-20180910/feed/ 0 Earliest Black Hole Gives Rare Glimpse of Ancient Universe https://www.quantamagazine.org/earliest-black-hole-gives-rare-glimpse-of-ancient-universe-20171206/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/earliest-black-hole-gives-rare-glimpse-of-ancient-universe-20171206/#respond Wed, 06 Dec 2017 17:42:44 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=53672 The post Earliest Black Hole Gives Rare Glimpse of Ancient Universe first appeared on Quanta Magazine

]]> Astronomers have at least two gnawing questions about the first billion years of the universe, an era steeped in literal fog and figurative mystery. They want to know what burned the fog away: stars, supermassive black holes, or both in tandem? And how did those behemoth black holes grow so big in so little time? Now the discovery of a supermassive black hole smack in the middle of this period is...

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