Yesterday one of my good nerd friends sent a post detailing the recently discovered mechanism that produced quasars: gas being forcefully driven into supermassive black holes when galaxies collide. I remember as a kid hearing about the announcement of the discovery of quasars n the 1960’s, and it further fanned the flame of my astronomical interest. I also remember my dad rolling his eyes as I explained that quasar stood for quasi stellar objects that were extremely bright and were seen in the far reaches of the universe but nobody knew (at that time) how they could be so bright.
The post also detailed how quasars were discovered by the Isaac Newton Telescope on the Canary Island of La Palma sixty years ago. Wow! My wife, Fairy, and had I toured the Canary Islands five years ago and saw the observatories on La Palma. I checked my photos and found the one above with the observatory site visible in the background. The actual quasar discovery telescope is just out of view below the ridge on the right side of the image. The photo was taken April 28, 2018, five years exactly from the date of yesterday’s post. I think it was quite a coincidental quasar connection.
#quasar #lapalma #canaryislands #RoquedelosMuchachosObservatory
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