Description
Transcript: In Einstein’s theory of relativity mass bends light, and this leads to the phenomenon of gravitational lensing. A single massive galaxy can deflect light by a very small angle, about one arcsecond. However, this can be resolved from the ground and especially with the Hubble Space Telescope, and so many situations of gravitational lensing have been discovered. Elliptical galaxies are massive and concentrated enough in their centers to cause multiple image formation of background active galaxies or quasars. Astronomers know nearly one hundred situations where a single quasar image has been turned into multiple images by an intervening galaxy. Typically two or four images are seen; however, there is an odd numbered image, the fifth or the third, which is demagnified and superimposed on the lensing galaxy itself. The situation of gravitational lensing is important in astronomy because the gravity of all matter, visible and dark matter, causes the bending of the light and so astronomers can model the entire mass of a galaxy in this way.
Transcript: The fact that quasars are at large distances and have huge luminosities depends on the cosmological interpretation of their redshift. There are some crucial distinctions between galaxies and quasars as far as redshift goes. For galaxies they follow a Hubble relation where distance...
Published 07/28/11
Transcript: Quasars were mysterious when they were first discovered in the 1960s. But careful work showed that the quasar is surrounded by nebulosity, and eventually spectroscopy of the nebulosity showed that it was the light of stars in a normal galaxy. Thus quasar stands for quasi-stellar...
Published 07/28/11
Transcript: Astronomers at Caltech became interested in the newly accurate radio positions of strong sources in the sky. They focused in particular on two sources, 3C48 and 3C273 which appeared to be associated with bluish stars. Since normal stars like the Sun do not emit strong radio waves...
Published 07/28/11