Scientists Find Seven More Quasars Hurling ‘Blobs’ Out Into Space

An international team of scientists has discovered seven more quasars that are throwing off “blobs” of material at nearly the speed of light.

The find doubles the number of these star-like objects known to send out jets of material trillions of miles long and adds support to the theory that at the heart of every quasar lies a black hole.

Quasars are intensely bright objects near the distant fringes of the universe--so far away that they should be almost invisible, yet so bright that for many years astronomers thought they were nearby stars.

For years scientists have sought to understand what the source of energy is for these relatively small objects that are five to 10 billion light years away from Earth. In 1969, for the first time, scientists observed that one quasar was sending off material that was traveling so fast it had to be moving at near the speed of light.

That led some to speculate that the power that drives the quasar must be a black hole, an object so dense that its gravity is so strong that even light cannot escape. For material to escape the black hole, it would have to be spun off from the outer edge of the quasar, and it would have to be traveling at near the speed of light in order to escape the black hole’s gravitational field.

That further led to a flurry of excitement among astronomers who believed that if the speculation were correct, it should be relatively easy to find quasars that are sending off speedy jets of material, most likely the debris from stars that were sucked into the gravitational field and then disintegrated. Some of that material, the theory went, would have crashed into the black hole, but some of it would have been spun off at an enormous speed.

But in the succeeding years, only six more quasars were found to be spitting out jet streams at speeds near that of light.

That figure doubled Monday with the announcement that seven more had been discovered in the past few months.

“We found out how to do it,” said Anthony Readhead, director of Caltech’s Owens Valley Radio Observatory and the Caltech leader of the team that made the discovery.

The scientists used a network of radio telescopes in the United States and Europe to study 67 quasars and radio galaxies during two periods of observations. A third period is slated for February.

Readhead said they owe part of their success to good timing.

“You have to be lucky and looking at it when it shoots out a new blob,” he said.

By systematically observing the 67 randomly selected targets, the team observed the jets while watching seven quasars, and Readhead said he expects that number to rise substantially--possibly to as high as 50%--as the experiment continues.

What does it all mean?

“First, it shows that this behavior (among quasars) is not uncommon,” Readhead said.

If it is common, that lends credence to the theory that these enormous sources of energy are most likely powered by a black hole, Readhead said, because the material would have to travel that fast to escape.

That, in turn, could help scientists understand some of the most fundamental driving forces in the universe. Many astronomers believe a black hole lies at the heart of every galaxy.