Description
Transcript: In the standard model of cosmology structure formation occurs in a top down way which means that the smallest objects, galaxies, form first and then subsequently cluster to form clusters of galaxies and eventually superclusters of galaxies. The largest structures therefore should be the youngest, and indeed the local supercluster of galaxies in the nearby universe is only just forming. Clusters in the local universe are observed to be relaxed, that is symmetric, and apparently gravitationally stable, the galaxies having had a number of orbits in and out of the cluster. But by high redshift, the time available for forming large structures is much less so astronomers anticipate that rich clusters should be very rare at high redshift. The density or number of clusters at high redshift is thus a test of the standard cosmological model, and astronomers put a large effort into trying to find high redshift clusters. It’s very difficult to find clusters beyond a redshift of one which means that mass concentrations that large were very rare in the first few billion years of the universe.
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