SpaceWordGame

A fun way to get up to speed on space jargon, by proposing better meanings for exciting-sounding words from way way up beyond the atmosphere. There are many fabulous words used in the space business every day -- bring them into your workplace with you, fresh with new meanings, and impress your co-workers. With a nod to Douglas Adams and John Lloyd who did something much more powerful for placenames, this was inspired by The Snowball Herminator, who takes all credit and no responsibility.

2011-02-15

Quasar

Quasar is more fun name for QSO - Quasi-Stellar Object. These are distant objects very highly redshifted so that they are bright in both optical and infrared bands, but also strong X-ray emitters. Quasars are unimaginably bright things, outshining galaxies. They are potentially close to supermassive black holes at the centres of very remote galaxies. Quasars are often found to have bright 'jets' of radio emissions 'focussed' by magnetic fields, such as illustrated below. Read more about quasars here.

NGC4261 Artist's Impression

1 comment:

Ched8017 Feb 2011, 14:54:00
A game of laser-tag, mainly played by 14 year-olds in converted abandoned warehouses.
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2011-02-15

Quasar

1 comment: