Heroes and Cultural Identity Project

SCE Heroes - Maarten Schmidt

My Hero:

MAARTEN SCHMIDT

by Eden McCann

I have chosen Maarten Schmidt
As my Science Hero, Who really
Just named Quasars 'Quasars'
Now moving on to Quasars, Quasars

Are quite possibly the most destructive force in the universe. A quasar (contraction of Quasi-stellar radio source) is an extremely powerful and distant active galactic nucleus. Quasars were first identified as being high redshift sources of electromagnetic energy, including radio waves and visible light, that were point-like, similar to stars, rather than extended sources similar to galaxies. While there was initially some controversy over the nature of these objects, there is now a scientific consensus that a quasar is a compact region 10-10,000 Schwarzschild radii across surrounding the central supermassive black hole of a galaxy. Quasars are very bright the furthest away one is 2.44 giga light years away. Sometimes quasars are formed when a gas rich galaxy collides with a giant galaxy.

Now I feel that quasars help us discover more about the universe, about the laws of physics and chemistry, and give us an insight as to what it would be like when the big bang went off, it also gives us a glimpse of what the future has in store for us

Eden McCann is a science student following a one year university access course in biological sciences.