North Ecliptic Pole and KAZ 102

Image credit: Max-Planck-Institut für extraterrestrische Physik (MPE)

This PSPC image of the North Ecliptic Pole shows KAZ 102, an optically bright, radio quiet quasar. KAZ 102 (towards the top of the image) was monitored during the ROSAT All-Sky Survey for 121.5 days (July 30 1990 to Jan25 1991).

Some characteristics of quasars are:

A star-like appearance

Very large redshifts
(This tells us that quasars are very far away. Since it takes so long for light to travel long distances, qusars must be some of the oldest objects in the Universe.)

Broad emission lines in the spectrum; occasional absorption lines.

Those that are radio sources sometimes have variable lumnosity

Aligned double-lobed structures (ie. Cygnus A)

About half the radio-emitting quasars have nuclear jets

Curator: Michael Arida (ADNET)
HEASARC Guest Observer Facility

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This file was last modified on Tuesday, 25-Aug-2020 18:01:42 EDT