"Quasi-stellar radio sources, or quasars, are AGNs so extreme—with black holes so voracious—that they shine as bright or brighter than their galaxy. The luminosity of this nearest quasar to Earth is 25 times that of the Sun."
Quasars can shine 100,000 times brighter than the Milky Way. Their black hole eats stars so fast that the inner disk spins up to 80% the speed of light. Shearing forces superheat the matter, adding a glow to the blazing jets that’s visible for billions of light years.
Generator Unlocked
Large Quasar Groups
Packs of quasars form the largest gravity-bound clusters in the universe. Huge-LQG contains 73 quasars spanning 4 billion light years. Their brilliant light took 9 billion light years to reach us, so we’re seeing them in a past era—when quasars ruled the universe.
Universe Beacons
Achievements[]
Icon
Name
Description
Requires
Binary Black Holes
Binary stars are more common than solo ones. So it makes sense that a quasar could have a double black hole. In Markarian 231, a small one from a merged galaxy is embedded in the accretion disk of a massive one. The pair orbit each other every 1.2 years.
Quasar 3C 273 Rank 3
TON 618 Quasar
Tonantzintla 618, named for a Mexican observatory, is a king among quasars. Its black hole weighs 40.7 to 66 billion Suns. Its luminosity—140 trillion times the Sun’s—blinds us to its galaxy. Light takes a week to cross the huge event horizon and reach the singularity.