Quasar

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A quasar (or Quasi-Stellar Radio Source) occurs when gas near a black hole goes into the black hole (at very high speed). When the gas gets close to the black hole, the gas heats up because of friction. Therefore, the gas glows very brightly, and this light is visible on the other side of the Universe. It is often brighter than the whole galaxy that quasar is in. Quasars were discovered in 1960 and are still actively studied by astronomers today.

Astronomers now think that when a galaxy has a quasar, the quasar changes the galaxy. Gas and dust from the galaxy falls onto the quasar, and the bright quasar heats up gas in the galaxy. This stops new stars from forming in the galaxy, so many of the elliptical galaxies we see in the Universe now may have once had a quasar in their centers. When the gas and dust stop falling onto the quasar, it stops being so bright and the black hole becomes very hard to see.

Artist illustration [1]