Nigel Goes to Space
Join Nigel as he takes you on his journey to the stars and beyond!
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What is a quasar?
Two billion light years from home, closing in on the edge of the Universe, going back to the beginning of time. This isn’t a galaxy, it’s brighter than 100 galaxies, a blinding beam of energy surging for trillions of miles. The deadliest most powerful thing in the Universe, the quasar. A swirling cauldron of superheated gas, this beast has a heart of darkness, a supermassive black hole as heavy as a billion suns. It’s ripping apart whole stars, devouring them until they’re nothing, lost forever from the visible Universe.
A quasar, or quasi-stellar radio source, is a massive and extremely remote celestial object, emitting exceptionally large amounts of energy, which typically has a star-like image in a telescope. It has been suggested that quasars contain massive black holes and may represent a stage in the evolution of some galaxies.
Nigel is an internationally acclaimed science populariser and author, specialising in astronomy and space.
