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Astrophysics

Quasar complexity simplified

Nature volume 513, pages 181–182 (2014)Cite this article

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An analysis of a sample comprising some 20,000 mass-accreting supermassive black holes, known as quasars, shows that most of the diverse properties of these cosmic beacons are explained by only two quantities. See Letter p.210

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a spectrum can be worth a thousand pictures. That is perhaps an underestimate when dealing with star-like blobs of light that look fuzzy even through the world's largest telescopes, as is the case with quasars. First recognized more than five decades ago as counterparts to radio sources1, these extremely energetic entities are supermassive black holes in the nuclei of distant galaxies2. The black holes themselves do not emit light, but their gravity accelerates gas into swirling accretion disks that can outshine the galaxies they dwell in. Determining the physical properties of these systems from spectroscopic observations is challenging. But a study by Shen and Ho3 reported on page 210 of this issue accomplishes that elusive feat in the clearest way so far, using not one quasar spectrum, but the spectra of more than 20,000 quasars.

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Figure 1: Helpful jets.

NRAO/AUI

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  1. Michael S. Brotherton is in the Department of Physics & Astronomy, University of Wyoming, Laramie, Wyoming 82071, USA.

    Michael S. Brotherton

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  1. Michael S. Brotherton
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Correspondence to Michael S. Brotherton.

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Brotherton, M. Quasar complexity simplified. Nature 513, 181–182 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/513181a

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