插图：早期的类星体
(原标题: Illustration: An Early Quasar)
2022-02-22
浏览次数: 20
第一批类星体是什么样子的？目前已知最近的类星体涉及活跃星系中心的超大质量黑洞。落向类星体的气体和尘埃发出明亮的光芒，有时比整个星系都要亮。然而，在宇宙最初10亿年形成的类星体更加神秘。最近的数据使艺术家对早期宇宙类星体的印象成为可能：以一个巨大的黑洞为中心，被气体和吸积盘包围，并喷出强大的射流。类星体是我们所能看到的最遥远的天体之一，它为人类提供了关于早期宇宙和介入宇宙的独特信息。目前已知的最古老的类星体是在红移接近8的时候发现的——在大爆炸后7亿年——当时宇宙只有现在年龄的百分之几。
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What did the first quasars look like? The nearest quasars are now known to involve supermassive black holes in the centers of active galaxies. Gas and dust that falls toward a quasar glows brightly, sometimes outglowing the entire home galaxy. The quasars that formed in the first billion years of the universe are more mysterious, though. Featured, recent data has enabled an artist's impression of an early-universe quasar as it might have been: centered on a massive black hole, surrounded by sheets of gas and an accretion disk, and expelling a powerful jet. Quasars are among the most distant objects we see and give humanity unique information about the early and intervening universe. The oldest quasars currently known are seen at just short of redshift 8 -- only 700 million years after the Big Bang -- when the universe was only a few percent of its current age.