1962-1964

Quasar

• Radio astronomers discovered them
• hundreds of them,
• but didn’t know what they were, other than
• extremely bright
• point-like objects
• with rapidly changing luminosity
• and erratic spectral compositions
• highly redshifted.
• *
• John Bolton and Maarten Schmidt
• were the first to locate a quasar’s visible origin,
• and to suggest that its redshift was caused
• by the expansion of space at an extreme distance
• and Edwin Salpeter and Yakov Zeldovich
• were the first to suggest that the quasar’s extreme power
• was from matter being drawn from an accretion disc
• into a supermassive black hole.

Unacceptable explanations

• It took a while
• for astronomers and physicists to accept
• that the universe is expanding.
• It took a while
• for astronomers and physicists to accept
• that black holes existed outside of theory.
• Nothing at the time
• was known to produce such brightness at such a distance
• from such a small point in space.

Quasi-stellar objects

• The petal of a yellow flower
• on the stalk of a common weed
• catches the sunlight.
• A gold crown glints
• as someone smiles
• somewhere in the crowd.
• A single candle shines
• through a dirty windowpane
• to end a long sea voyage.