The brightest object in the entire universe. What's the brightest thing in the universe?

The most distant astronomical objects from us are quasars. The most ancient stars. The most distant galaxies. One of the most mysterious and beautiful phenomena in the Universe. Quasars are the most distant and brightest objects in the known Universe.

It is possible that the gas scattered from the collision feeds the giant black hole in the core of Markarian 771. Falling onto the black hole, it heats up to very high temperatures. high temperatures and begins to glow brightly. That is why a quasar outshines the light of an entire galaxy. Oddly enough, black holes, which by definition should not emit light, can be the brightest objects in the Universe. A galaxy with the quasar QSO 1229+204 in the center, photographed from Earth and from space.

The initial definition was formed in the late 1950s - early 1960s, when the first quasars were discovered and their study was just beginning. One of the closest and brightest quasars, 3C 273, has a magnitude of about 13m and a redshift of z = 0.158 (which corresponds to a distance of about 3 billion light years).

In the early 1960s, scientists identified quasars as radio stars because they could be detected using a strong source of radio waves. In fact, the term quasar comes from the words “quasi-stellar radio source.” As soon as the radio power and optical telescopes became much higher, it was discovered that these were not real stars, but a type of star-shaped objects still unknown to science.

The brightest quasar is known as 3C 273 in the Third Cambridge Radio Source Catalog. The quasar itself is an object around the 13th magnitude, although, like many other quasars, its brightness varies periodically. It is assumed that the radio waves do not come from the quasar itself, but from the rays surrounding it. They also discovered that these objects are located very far away, beyond our Galaxy.

Their energy can be equal to that of three million suns. There is a version that some quasars emit energy 10-100 times more than all the stars in our Galaxy.

And they have the biggest infrared radiation. Another version of the origin of quasars suggests that they are very young galaxies. And some scientists even consider quasars to be certain points in space where new matter in the Universe originates. It still takes a lot of time to understand the essence of these strange objects. The first quasar discovered was called 3c273 and was located towards the constellation Virgo. It was discovered by Matthew Sandage in 1960. It is apparently connected with the other 16 stars of the constellation.

The true nature of the object, proving that it is not an ordinary star but something else, was revealed when scientists detected the release of energy in a relatively small area. If an object discovered in space has such a displacement and releases a huge amount of energy, it becomes a prime candidate to be called a quasar.

Thanks to the rapid development of technology, astronomers are making more and more interesting and incredible discoveries in the Universe. For example, the title of “most large object in the Universe” moves from one discovery to another almost every year. Some open objects so huge that they baffle even the best scientists on our planet with their existence.

With an extent of 1.8 billion light years, this spot baffles scientists because they could not even imagine that such an object could actually exist. This region of space contains about 30 percent fewer galaxy clusters than the surrounding space. One proposed theory, for example, suggests that cold spots are imprints of black holes parallel universes caused by quantum entanglement between universes.

Record holders of the Universe

This bubble, 200 million light years across, is a giant collection of gas, dust and galaxies. With some caveats, this object looks like a giant green jellyfish. Each of the three “tentacles” of this bubble contains galaxies that are four times more densely packed together than is normal in the Universe.

These objects are believed to have formed approximately 2 billion years after the Big Bang and are true relics of the ancient Universe. According to theories, over time, more and more new galaxies will form from the gas accumulated here. Astronomers theorize that this is due to Great Attractor(Great Attractor), an object with such a gravitational force that it is enough to attract entire galaxies to itself.

However, once scientists decided to look deeper into space, they soon discovered that the “great cosmic magnet” was a much larger object than previously thought. It may be much larger than thought, spanning 750 million light years. The problem in determining the exact dimensions lies in its location.

Great Wall Sloane is a giant galactic filament, consisting of several superclusters spread across the Universe like the tentacles of a giant octopus. The presence of the “wall” and any other larger objects creates new questions about the mysteries of the Universe. Their existence contradicts a cosmological principle that theoretically limits how large objects in the universe can be.

Quasars are high-energy astronomical objects located at the center of galaxies. This results in enormous radiation, 1000 times more powerful than all the stars within the galaxy. Stretching over 5 billion light years, the Giant GRB Ring is the second largest object in the Universe. This object, called the Great Wall of Hercules - Corona Borealis, extends over 10 billion light years, making it twice the size of the Giant Gamma-ray Ring.

With a length of 1.4 billion light years, the "wall" was once considered the largest object in the Universe. For example, about the Shapley supercluster. The very first sentences say that “our Milky Way galaxy... is attracted through the Universe to the constellation Centaurus.” it is a masterpiece. In 2006, the discovery of a mysterious cosmic “bubble” (or blob, as scientists usually call them) received the title of the largest object in the Universe.

The closest quasar is 3C 273, which is located in a giant elliptical galaxy in the constellation Virgo. Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA.

Shining so brightly that they dwarf the ancient galaxies in which they reside, quasars are distant objects that are essentially a black hole with an accretion disk billions of times more massive than our Sun. These powerful objects have fascinated astronomers since their discovery in the middle of the last century.

In the 1930s, Karl Jansky, a physicist at Bell Telephone Laboratories, discovered “stellar noise” that was strongest toward the center of the star. Milky Way. In the 1950s, astronomers, using radio telescopes, were able to detect new type objects in our Universe.

Because this object looked like a point, astronomers called it a “quasi-stellar radio source” or quasar. However, this definition is not entirely correct, since, according to the National Astronomical Observatory Japan, only about 10 percent of quasars emit strong radio waves.

It took years of study to realize that these distant specks of light that seemed to look like stars were created by particles accelerating to speeds approaching the speed of light.

“Quasars are among the brightest and most distant celestial objects known. They have crucial to understand evolution early universe“- emphasized astronomer Bram Venemans from the Institute of Astronomy. Max Planck in Germany.

It is assumed that quasars form in those regions of the Universe in which the overall density of matter is much higher than the average.

Most quasars have been found billions of light years away. Because the light requires certain time To travel this distance, studying quasars is very much like a time machine: we see the object as it was when the light left it, billions of years ago. Almost all of the more than 2,000 quasars known to date are found in young galaxies. Our Milky Way, like other similar galaxies, has probably already passed this stage.

In December 2017, the most distant quasar was discovered, which was located at a distance of more than 13 billion light years from Earth. Scientists have been watching this object, known as J1342+0928, with interest since it appeared just 690 million years after the Big Bang. These types of quasars can provide information about how galaxies evolve over time.

Bright quasar PSO J352.4034-15.3373 located at a distance of 13 billion light years. Credit: Robin Dienel/Carnegie Institution for Science.

Quasars emit millions, billions, and perhaps even trillions of electronvolts of energy. This energy exceeds total the light of all the stars in the galaxy, which is why quasars shine 10-100 thousand times brighter than, for example, the Milky Way.

If quasar 3C 273, one of the brightest objects in the sky, were 30 light-years from Earth, it would appear as bright as the Sun. However, the distance to quasar 3C 273 is actually at least 2.5 billion light years.

Quasars belong to a class of objects known as active galactic nuclei (AGNs). This also includes Seyfert galaxies and blazars. All these objects require supermassive black hole for existence.

Seyfert galaxies are the most weak type AGN forming only about 100 kiloelectronvolts of energy. Blazars, like them cousins- Quasars emit significantly larger amounts of energy.

Many scientists believe that all three types of AGN are essentially the same objects, but located at different angles to us.

“Our world is immersed in a huge ocean of energy, we are flying in infinite space with unfathomable speed."
N. Tesla

Quasars were discovered by astronomers quite recently, in the middle of the twentieth century. There is still debate about what they are. Scientists have several theories, but which one is correct is still unknown.

Beacons of the Universe

At first, quasars were mistaken for stars: with long distance these objects appear as luminous points. But when electromagnetic radiation The distance to these stars was calculated and their brightness was determined, scientists were amazed. Because a star located so far from us cannot be seen. And the star can't be that bright. Quasars glow tens and sometimes hundreds of times brighter than all the stars in our galaxy combined. Moreover, their size is comparable to the size of the Solar System, which means they are hundreds of thousands of times smaller than the average galaxy.

Quasar glows brighter than any star

The new space objects were called quasars (which means “quasi-stellar radio source”) and they began to be studied. Soon a new one was discovered amazing property: Quasars constantly changed their degree of brightness, and over very short periods of time. Sometimes changes occurred within a few days or even hours.

The closest quasar to us named 3C 273 is located at a distance of 3 billion light years, while it has a magnitude of -13. The most distant quasars discovered are 12 billion light years away, and yet we can see them because they shine with crazy intensity. Each quasar is located at the center of the galaxy, which is why quasars are called active galactic nuclei.

The light from quasars takes billions of years to reach us, and what we see is the distant past. All quasars are very far from our galaxy; Thus, by observing quasars, one can understand what was happening on the outskirts of the Universe at the time of its birth. Since the Universe is homogeneous, most likely the same thing happened in our region. Perhaps our galaxy also once had a quasar, which by that time had ended its existence or turned into something else.

Quasars are called the “dinosaurs of the Universe” due to their advanced age. They have existed for a very long time, almost as long as our Universe. New quasars have not been formed for a long time.

If we could harness the energy of a quasar, it would last us forever. The energy that this bright object emits in a second, it would be enough to provide our planet with electricity for billions of years

Quasar Appetite

According to one version, quasars are young galaxies that were born quite recently, by stellar standards. At the center of such a galaxy there is a black hole that absorbs matter. A bright glow emanates from it. Or rather, not from her, but from the adjacent area. After all, the interstellar gas around a black hole is always in a heated state.

Quasars are not simple black holes, but supermassive ones, which is why their radiation is so powerful. And the changes in brightness are explained as follows: when a new object falls into the region of attraction of a black hole, it flares up. When the “nourishment” does not come, its light fades. It must be said that the quasar has an excellent appetite - it consumes stars, their systems, clusters and entire galaxies. Over time, the black hole will consume all matter within its reach and stop glowing. This is probably what happened with the black hole at the center of our galaxy. She “ate” everything she could reach and is now in a state of rest.

According to another version, quasars are not black holes themselves, but part of a system consisting of a black hole, a quasar and a tunnel connecting them. The black hole absorbs objects, and then the absorbed energy is released through the quasar.

There's another one interesting theory : quasars are special points in the Universe where new energy and matter, which then spreads everywhere. That is, quasars are cosmic batteries that power the Universe.

New quasars are being discovered by astronomers all the time as telescopes become more advanced. Currently, more than 200 thousand quasars have already been discovered

More than 50 years ago, thanks to scientists, with the advent of the first radio telescope, it was possible to detect the brightest objects in the Universe, studying enormous radiation. By cosmic standards, the size of this unknown object was very modest - no larger than the Solar System. A feature of the object was its extraordinary brightness: the light reached the Earth over tens of billions of years. Later, such energy sources began to be called quasars.

The term "quasar" is an acronym that consists of two concepts and literally stands for "quasi-stellar radio sources." Their radiation power is similar to that of an entire galaxy, but in a compressed volume. Optical observation does not allow us to reveal the full essence of quasars. Their apparent structure varies greatly depending on the distance of the object.

According to Hubble's law about the Universe rapidly expanding in all directions, these radioactive objects are billions of light years away from Earth, and continue to move away from it at tremendous speed. The farther the quasar is from the Earth, the greater the speed, close to the speed of light, it moves away from the planet. The most distant quasars are located 20 billion light years away.

The red shift observed in the nature of quasars are lines of an atom whose position changes when Doppler shift is applied. In other words, this confirms the enormous speed of removal of mysterious space objects from planet Earth. Redshift was first discovered by Schmidt in the last century.

Unlike stars, which are easily visible in the sky even with the naked eye, quasars cannot be seen without astronomical equipment. The problem of observation lies in the enormous remoteness of space objects, and not in their radiation. In contrast, the luminosity of a quasar is similar to that of big galaxy. However, the brightness of quasars can vary significantly over the course of a week, suggesting that celestial objects are small in size. Active radiation continues a long period time - millions of years, and the intensity of such radiation indicates the massiveness of the mysterious cosmic body. Indeed, in order to emit such a large amount of energy, the mass must exceed the total mass of all objects in the Solar System, including the Sun, by tens of millions of times. Many scientists agree that, based on these characteristics, quasars are the nuclei of nascent galaxies that are full of energy and radioactive radiation.

But the relatively small sizes, with such strong radiation, are very similar to the so-called “black holes” - celestial objects that cannot be seen even through super-powerful telescopes, since they represent a powerful energy object. The force of attraction in this object is so high that it even absorbs its own emitted light. As a rule, black holes are located in hearts large galaxies and allow you to “calculate” yourself by studying a huge flow radioactive particles and the influence of gravity on nearby celestial bodies. The theory that quasars are the same black holes, only in young stellar systems, has fewer supporters than the theory that they are involved in the galaxies themselves as a central object.

Studying the radiation of a quasar, astronomers suggested that the object consists of several types of streams elementary particles, allowing it to be observed in the ultraviolet, infrared spectrum, x-ray radiation and optical imaging. Cosmic "rays" of quasars propagate throughout the Universe in two opposite directions, which creates a radioactive shell around a celestial object. The center of the quasar actively generates streams of electromagnetic particles, which also form opposite jets on both sides.

Where does such a compact celestial body such energy reserves?

The gravitational field created by a quasar is so strong that it destroys all energy sources approaching the cosmic object. The gas that is formed during the destruction of stellar bodies rapidly rotates like a centrifuge, creating a gas shell. The enormous speed of rotation and simultaneous compression form powerful radiation.

The mystery of the origin of quasars is also unsolved: why do these objects not appear in all galaxies? And how can we explain their similarity to black holes? To study the problem of the emergence of these cosmic objects and explain their powerful radiation is to move one step closer to studying the mysterious Universe.

There are objects in deep space that glow brighter than a trillion Suns. These are the brightest objects we observe in the Universe. They emit incredible amounts of energy and are capable of eating planets and tearing stars to pieces. These are some of the most mysterious phenomena in the Universe with enormous energy. They can destroy Galaxies, but perhaps they can also save them. Physical conditions there can be the most incredible things. These cosmic sources energies are called quasars and perhaps we owe our existence to them.

For many decades, astronomers have been observing bright points in the night sky that have something strange about them. These are small points of light, like stars, but they are very mysterious. One of these strange objects is hiding in the Virgo galactic cluster. When observed from Earth, this object looks similar to the stars around it, but astronomers who studied its light made a surprising discovery. It is incredibly far away, not only not in our Galaxy, but in general in none of the galaxies visible to us, more than a billion light years away. And at such a distance, such a bright glow. Therefore quasars for a long time were a complete mystery to us. They are so bright that despite the enormous distances they look like stars located much closer, which is why they are called quasi-stellar objects, or quasars for short. Closer observations allowed scientists to understand where they came from; they all originate not from anywhere, but from the core of the galaxy.

A quasar is the super-bright core of a very distant galaxy, and we saw them only thanks to their extraordinary power. One quasar glows brighter than the entire Galaxy, it releases energy like hundreds of billions of stars. Enormous energy is concentrated in one source. Explosion atomic bomb is accompanied by a colossal release of energy, but compared to a quasar this is nothing, it releases a trillion trillion times more energy every second. Great amount energy packed into a very small volume.

But where does such a small object come from so much energy, how can such an amount of energy be released at such a small size, what could be the source of such power? Apparently the quasar has a very powerful engine. There is only one object in the Universe that can generate enough energy for such phenomena to occur, and is massive and dense enough for this to happen: a black hole. This is the only object known to us that can power a quasar.

Stars 25 times heavier than our Sun die in the fight against gravity, experiencing a catastrophic collapse. Their entire huge mass is compressed into a small point and a black hole is formed. Black holes are completely unique phenomenon, they are incredibly massive and dense, such an amount of matter is concentrated in a small volume that the curvature of space occurs, creating an area called the event horizon. The boundary of these monstrous objects, the event horizon, is a point of no return; everything that crosses it cannot return back, not even light.

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Black hole - deadly power

Black hole event horizon

Light flies freely through space and time, but there they are folded, closed on themselves, so light cannot escape from there. There are black holes all over the Universe, they are different, some are only 3 times heavier than our Sun, and some are much larger and are called supermassive. Quasars are the largest black holes in the Universe, billions of times more massive than our Sun. This is on the verge of understanding, just imagine a black hole that is a billion times heavier than the Sun. Huge mass is the cause of monstrous gravity. Scientists believe that the only source of energy for quasars can be supermassive black holes.

But black holes suck in everything, even light, that's why they're black, so how can they be bright? Black holes are very voracious, they attract gas and dust, which form a ring around the black hole, the so-called accretion disk. This is a giant whirlpool of matter that strives to fall onto a supermassive black hole, but cannot fall all at once and strong friction is created in the disk; the faster the gas and dust move, the stronger the friction. This speed is close to the speed of light; if you rub your palms at this speed, they will heat up so much that they will evaporate. The matter in the accretion disk heats up to millions of degrees. In this case, radiation is released, which we see as light. The center of the Galaxy glows so much that it can be seen billions of light years away.

Matter becomes very dense and hot, and a quasar appears. Therefore, black holes are not only the darkest but also the brightest objects in the Universe. Quasars have long made scientists scratch their heads, and now it turns out that even the brightest objects can be invisible. What is interesting is the brightest of open galaxies not visible to us.

November 2015. Using the large Atacama radio telescope, scientists were able to look inside the brightest Galaxy in the Universe. The quasar at its center emits 350 million times more light than our Sun, but is invisible to our eyes. It's just all this light in the infrared spectrum. This unusual galaxy, the so-called hot dog. Astronomers call galaxies surrounded by clouds of interstellar dust hot dogs. It is they who hide the light of the colossal quasar from our view. Since it is a supermassive black hole, matter is constantly falling into it and sometimes there is so much of it that the quasar is completely invisible. Visible light The quasar is absorbed by a thick layer of dust, through which only the infrared part of the spectrum passes.

In this range the radiation is very intense. The hot dog galaxies are interesting because they were discovered unexpectedly. It turns out that half of the brightest quasars in the Universe are exactly like this. Quasars are so bright that some of them are visible from the very edge of the Universe, 13 billion light years away. This means that they arose less than a billion years after the Big Bang. But how could such colossal objects arise so quickly after the birth of the Universe?

Many quasars have been discovered in the Universe, they are more powerful and brighter than their own Galaxies, the light from them flies to us for billions of years. Even light at a speed of 300,000 km per second needs great time to cover such a distance. Therefore, we see with our eyes as they were millions and even billions of years ago. In 2017, scientists at Chile's Las Campanas Observatory pointed telescopes at the most the ancient part Universe and there an incredible surprise awaited them. This quasar arose only 600 - 700 million after Big Bang. The mass of this black hole is 800 million times greater than that of the Sun. This is the oldest quasar discovered and originated from on a cosmic scale shortly after the birth of the Universe, which at that time was filled mainly with hydrogen and helium.

We know that the energy sources of quasars are supermassive black holes, but how such a huge black hole could form so early is a great mystery. One of the main questions in astronomy: where did these supermassive black holes come from, how could they have arisen at the dawn of the development of the Universe?

The answer lies in the incredible growth rate of black holes; they consume matter endlessly. When we eat, at some point we get full and don’t want to eat anymore. And black holes are always hungry, they are insatiable. The black hole absorbs everything that gets too close, becoming more and more massive.

However, there is a limit to the speed of its growth. A billion years after the birth of the Universe is too short a time for a black hole to gain a billion solar masses, which means that in addition to the absorption of matter there must have been some other process due to which its basis arose. Apparently, these giants grew out of smaller but also very large black holes. Ordinary black holes from the explosion of stars that are 25 or more times more massive than the Sun are quite a bit. For a supermassive black hole to arise, you need a supermassive star, ancient giant formed from gases in the early Universe. These were huge gas accumulations, consisting mainly of hydrogen and partly helium. As they cooled, they contracted into stars, which is giant balls from hydrogen. These supergiants lived brightly and died young. When they died, they formed huge black holes, this is one of the ways black holes are formed for such sizes; they arose during the death of early stars.

But there is a problem here, probably even such supermassive stars could not give rise to large enough black holes. There must be another way for a billion-sun mass black hole to form in less than a billion years. How else could the Universe create supermassive black holes from dense clouds of gas? According to one theory, they could have formed as a result of one large collapse, the so-called direct collapse. Huge super-dense accumulations of hydrogen come together, gravity increases and attracts even more gas, it becomes denser and finally collapses. Instead of a star, a supermassive black hole immediately forms. Then the Galaxy begins to form around it, the gas rushes towards the center, heats up more and more and a quasar appears. So bright that we can see it today from a distance of 13 billion light years.

New theories are created, scientists try to explain what they observe. The more distant quasars they discover, the more likely they are to learn how they formed, perhaps discovering new laws of physics that allow such massive black holes to form so quickly. As astronomers study quasars, they are learning more about early stage development of the Universe. The galaxies seem peaceful and calm, but they bear traces of a turbulent past. From their centers extend scars tens of thousands of light years long.

Quasar at the center of the Hydra A galaxy

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Quasar at the center of the Hydra A galaxy cluster

Deadly quasar beam

This is the Hydra A galaxy cluster. Here they are, the scars. When observing at different wavelengths, the reason was determined - two colossal streams of energy escaping from the core of the Galaxy, where the quasar is located. As they pierce the Galaxy, they extend into space, creating voids in the surrounding gas. The amount of energy in these streams is amazing and baffling. Just imagine how much more powerful they are, such energy is capable of accelerating a mass many times greater than the mass of the Sun to a speed close to the speed of light and sending it hundreds of thousands of light years.

These streams emanate from the core of the quasar and are streams of supercharged particles moving at speeds of millions of kilometers per hour, heating up to trillions of degrees. Even regular quasars are incredibly powerful, but outflow quasars are much more destructive. The energy of billions or trillions of stars, concentrated in narrow streams, permeates the Universe with deadly rays. Everything that gets in their way is doomed to destruction. Not only the Galaxy in which the quasar is located suffers from this; these streams are so powerful that they can destroy not only planets that get in their way, but also stars and entire solar systems.

This is exactly what happens in system 3321. In the visible spectrum we see just two Galaxies, but when observed at different wavelengths, it is clear that the larger one emits a deadly beam that pierces the smaller one and goes further into space.

It destroys planets, stars explode under its influence, and the flow of energy travels vast distances in space. The largest known flow is almost one and a half megaparsecs long. A megaparsec is more than 3 million light years, and then about 5 million light years. The flows of quasar energy stop in intergalactic space, in thin layer gas surrounding the galaxy. It extends across hundreds of thousands of light years, igniting intergalactic space. As a result, powerful shock waves, as in the galaxy Painter A.

Large clouds of gas, similar to cotton wool, form at the end of the stream emitted by the quasar. But it seems that quasars with energy flows emanating from them are a rare species, only 10% of them. Scientists can only guess how these flows are formed. They see quasars with such streams throughout the Universe, but have little idea how they arise. It's so difficult process, what to understand what physical laws it is incredibly difficult to define. Astronomers believe these flows originate in an accretion disk, a rotating disk of gas near the black hole's event horizon.

This is the most developed theory. Gas falls into a supermassive black hole, moving faster and getting hotter. At a certain temperature, the gas turns into plasma filled with charged electromagnetic particles. Near supermassive black holes there are fast moving charged particles that create magnetic fields. Rotating around a black hole, particles generate a powerful magnetic field. Gradually it surrounds the black hole. This powerful magnetic field around the black hole causes all the charged particles in the accretion disk to move along its power lines. If a celestial body has a magnetic field, then there is magnetic poles, particles can fly out of them, they accelerate, twist in a spiral, and then are thrown out. The pressure in the disk is incredibly high, the magnetic fields are very strongly compressed by the rotating black hole, resulting in a directed flow of enormous power. This stream flies out from the poles of the black hole at a speed only 1% less than the speed of light. Quasars are colossal generators, they convert gravitational energy into magnetic energy, and magnetic energy turns into kinetic energy, manifesting itself in the form of these flows.

They are so powerful that they can be easily seen in all parts of the Universe. Quasars continue to occupy the minds of astronomers. And now they threw new riddle: It takes millions of years for a quasar to flare up. But recently one was discovered that lit up in an instant by cosmic standards.

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To date, more than 200 thousand quasars have been discovered. In June 2106, another one was opened. Moreover, it is not like others because it broke out in just 500 days. By cosmic standards, this is a moment. It is very strange, we're talking about about the absorption of gas on a galactic scale. This is an incredibly short period of time that we usually see astronomical phenomena occur on a much larger time scale. Therefore, when it ignites over several months or years, that is, it changes from one state to a completely different one almost instantly, it is a little scary. Scientists suggest that quasar flares are a natural stage in the development of galaxies. Galaxies are not immutable; they are constantly changing and evolving. However, when a quasar flares up in one of them over the course of a year, it is very surprising. It is believed that most galaxies, if not all, go through a quasar formation phase, and this is a normal stage of their development. IN at a young age quasars are just like children, they even throw hysterics, they shine brightly and absorb matter at a tremendous speed, just like we do in our youth, we eat everything we can get our hands on, and storms constantly flare up in our souls, our mood often changes, about the same thing happens to a quasar.

When a quasar gets hungry and starts eating, it can burst into flames. What triggers this process, what lights up and extinguishes a quasar? This is due to the gas that gets into the center of the galaxy, when matter gets there - the black hole is already ready and the gas flares up. Where does a quasar get so much gas? For a quasar to flare up, certain conditions are needed: firstly, a supermassive black hole, and secondly, a fall into it large quantity matter. What can it come from? From the collision of galaxies.

The galaxy does not stand still, they move in space and sometimes collide. In this case, the supermassive black holes at the centers collide and merge. And gas from both galaxies rushes towards the new supermassive black hole. When galaxies merge, a black hole appears new food, the mass of free matter that can be absorbed. This new source food and the black hole begins to absorb it from new strength. The gas rushes towards the black hole, heating up to millions of degrees and the galactic core flares up. This is how Quasar is born.

Galactic merger creates optimal conditions for the formation of a quasar, but when astronomers studied quasars that flared up unusually quickly, they found no evidence of mergers, they were lit by something else...

A typical quasar has such dimensions that it is natural to assume that it takes a lot of time for it to flare up, not a year or two, but much more; the gas must pass through the central part of the galaxy, rushing into the black hole as a result of starting this colossal cosmic generator. Considering the scale, it takes a lot of time. What can speed up this process? According to one version, this can be done by a catastrophe that occurred in the accretion disk - a ring of gas surrounding a black hole. If a quasar is active, it means the black hole is absorbing something, so if it flares up, we can conclude that something significant happened near it. Maybe part of the disk fell right away or some star was too close. The accretion disk is not only made up of gas and dust; black holes suck in everything that happens to be nearby.

There are stars, gas and gas nebulae, stars forming and dying, there is a lot going on there. When a star gets too close, it is simply torn apart. The monstrous pull of a black hole can tear stars to pieces, leading to a sharp release of energy in the accretion disk, or the impetus for a quasar flare can be the explosion of a star. If a supernova breaks out in the accretion disk, a whole avalanche of matter immediately falls on the black hole. In both cases, the sudden acceleration of the gas rapidly heats the accretion disk and the quasar ignites. For a quasar to activate, something catastrophic must happen in the galaxy. After this, the quasar can glow for millions of years, emitting destructive streams of energy. We see them all over the Universe and it seems that suitable conditions for them exist everywhere, even close to us.

Let's summarize what is needed for a quasar flare: firstly, a galaxy with a supermassive black hole in the center, secondly, gas, and thirdly, matter must fall onto the black hole. We live in a Galaxy called the Milky Way, at its center there is a supermassive black hole around which gas rotates, in general the news is not very good. Our future is not very bright...

Astronomers and astrophysicists thought our galaxy was a quiet and peaceful place, but what if it has a turbulent past? Recently, scientists discovered that two nebulae ejected from its center, they are composed of hot gas and are moving away from our galaxy at a speed of more than 3 million kilometers per hour. These gas bubbles are huge, comparable in size to the galaxy itself - 50 thousand light years in length, if we saw them in the sky, they would stretch from horizon to horizon. Similar gas bubbles can be observed in distant galaxy clusters such as Hydra A.

One of the main questions is where did this gas come from, what could have heated it so much that it burst out of the galaxy? One possible answer is that it happened during active phase history of the Milky Way. Far in the heart of our Galaxy lies a giant hidden behind a curtain of gas. This is the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A.B this moment She's being quiet, but does that mean she's dead or just sleeping? The only thing that could create such extensive ejections of matter from both sides of the Milky Way disk are huge energy flows from the core of our galaxy, much like a quasar. But unlike Hydra A, the ejected gas is not hundreds of millions of years old, it was ejected into space no more than 6 million years ago. Almost all quasars that we see are located far in the Universe, which means in the distant past. And here we are talking about recent activity, the black hole at the center of our galaxy absorbed a lot of matter just 6 million years ago. Nobody expected this because we have always considered the Milky Way a very calm galaxy, and the black hole in it not too voracious, as if on a diet. Something broke this diet. Maybe the group of stars was too close?.. In any case, Sagittarius A instantly swallowed new food and woke up abruptly. Streams of energy from it threw trillions of tons of Gas out of the galaxy. And it was only a small flash because our quasar was smaller than most others, but it is possible that the sleeping giant will awaken again, and this awakening will be much more dangerous.

One day, looking at the night sky, we can understand that a new quasar has lit up on it. Quasars can flare up from the collision of galaxies, and such a collision awaits us. The Milky Way is moving towards Andromeda. We are approaching it at a speed of about 110 km per second. In about 4 billion years, these galaxies will collide, both containing supermassive black holes four or five times heavier than the Sun, and Andromeda's 20 times heavier. These black holes will begin to orbit each other and eventually merge into one.

The new black hole will be much larger than Sagittarius A, and this supergiant will have plenty of fresh gas to fuel it. This will be an incredible explosion for the Milky Way, perhaps the most powerful in its entire history. Then a quasar of previously unknown power may arise.

In the chaos of the collision of galaxies, ours Solar system can migrate closer to the galactic core, and therefore to the quasar. We will observe in close proximity not only the collision of galaxies, but also something even more grandiose and terrifying - the birth of a quasar. The closer we get, the more magnificent this spectacle will be. A new bright source of light will appear in the sky, almost like a second Sun, but along with the beauty of the spectacle we will receive incredible heat, quasar winds, and possibly energy flows. What will this mean for Earth? The atmosphere will be torn from the planet, the oceans will boil, perhaps Earth's crust melts, the release of energy will be colossal. There will be no more life on Earth. The newborn quasar will be incredibly powerful, it will eject trillions of tons of gas from the Milky Way, the main material for the formation of stars and planets, there will be no more stars, no more planets, no more people, no more civilization.

Quasars have enormous destructive force but it turns out they have another side. Quasars release incredible amounts of energy and destroy much of what surrounds them. But it is possible that without them we would not exist; despite their destructive power, quasars can be the main cosmic creators.

Emitting incredible energy, quasars can destroy what is around them, but it is possible that this is necessary for the health of the galaxy or even for the creation of conditions for life. Despite their destructive properties, quasars also have a creative side. It may well be that the Universe around us was created by them. Stars are the basis of the Galaxy, but if there are too many of them, this can also be a problem. When a lot of stars are formed it is good, but if there are too many of them it is bad. Newly born stars are hot, large, blue, but then they age and die, and this happens powerful explosion and a supernova occurs. New black holes, energy flows appear, shock waves pass through the gas in the galaxy, all this ultimately kills the galaxy. When a galaxy produces too many stars, it becomes unstable. Stars and planets are destroyed by powerful radiation from supernovae and black holes. But some galaxies have a cosmic protector who monitors the silence and peace in them, controlling the birth of stars. For the formation of stars, cold gas is needed: molecular hydrogen, but the quasar is far from cold, on the contrary, it is very hot. Therefore, if the birth of many stars is planned in a galaxy, and then a quasar flares up in it, it affects their formation.

The formation of stars in a galaxy is closely related to the presence of cold gas in it. Quasars release so much energy into the space around them that they can heat the gas from which stars form. Quasars greatly heat the surrounding space, including through the so-called quasar wind. It's the wind created by light. A disk of matter orbiting a supermassive black hole emits so much light that it... high speed pushes dust and gas both in and out of the galaxy. This wind can be very strong, it is not the wind we are used to, it is a stream of particles with high energy, sometimes they fly at speeds of hundreds of millions of kilometers per hour. The cold matter that makes up stars in a galaxy heats up and creates vortices. Instead of quiet, peaceful clusters of molecular hydrogen collapsing under the influence of gravity, a powerful quasar wind arises that changes everything. The gas in the galaxy heats up and the formation of stars proceeds differently: fewer of them appear than would otherwise be the case.

Quasars have other weapons to combat the overabundance of stars. There is another mechanism, the so-called mechanical or kinetic Feedback, in other words, direct physical impact, it's as if a freight train is rushing through the galaxy in the form of a stream of energy from a supermassive black hole. He is like a snowplow driving down the street, shoveling matter out of his way. These streams carry gas to the outskirts of the Galaxy. They have enormous energy, and they throw gas away, this stops the formation of stars, there is less material for it. But quasars are changeable and the role of the energy flows emitted by them is more complex than it might seem. Sometimes they can even contribute to the birth of stars. Astronomers are gaining more and more evidence that stars could be formed under the influence of these flows, at least in some parts of some galaxies.

In the seventeenth year, a telescope in the Atacama Desert allowed scientists to make another discovery. In the center of the galactic Phoenix cluster, stars are born where energy flow from a quasar. But since they eject gas from the galaxy, what makes stars there? They cause cold gas nebulae to coalesce that would otherwise not connect, and new stars begin to form rapidly along the energy flow. After all, a snowplow also compacts the snow, and it is from the compacted molecular gas that stars arise. Quasars are contradictory, sometimes destructive, and sometimes they can be creative. Perhaps they even maintain balance in the Universe.

But if they continued to push gas out of the galaxy indefinitely, they could completely stop star formation and kill it. Luckily they stop in time. At some point the gas in the center of the galaxy runs out, this acts like a switch, the quasar goes out. Quasars are powered by cold gas; without fuel they would die themselves. The gas clumps cool and stars begin to form again, with the cooling gas falling into the supermassive black hole, providing the quasar with fuel for another outburst. A black hole can turn itself off and on, just like a thermostat in an electric heater: if the room is too cold, it turns on and heats the air, and turns off when the desired temperature is reached. When a quasar turns on, it stops star formation, and when it goes out, it resumes. Quasars regulate the birth rate of stars so that too many of them are not born at the same time. Quasars reduce the rate at which galaxies consume their fuel, extending their lifespan. They seem to us to be an incredibly destructive phenomenon, but in reality they are very useful for the Universe, they are one of the creative Space Force, slowing down the rate of star formation in galaxies. It is very possible that quasar activity is necessary for the development of galaxies. In a certain sense, they maintain balance and help galaxies develop more evenly. For young galaxies in which stars are actively forming, quasars are a rite of passage, a stage of transformation into a mature and stable galaxy like ours. Perhaps quasars are necessary to maintain the health of the galaxy. We think they are playing extremely important role in the development of galaxies throughout its entire length.

Quasars contribute to the emergence of stable galaxies, such as those that can harbor life. We are connected with the Universe in the most intimate way, and quasars, even being very destructive, are an integral part of galaxies, playing a key role in their evolution. Sometimes in order to create, you need to destroy. Quasars made the Universe what it is, without them we simply would not exist.