A blazar is an active galactic nucleus (AGN) with a relativistic jet (a jet composed of ionized matter traveling at nearly the speed of light) directed towards an observer.

Blazars are powerful sources of emission across the electromagnetic spectrum and are observed to be sources of high-energy gamma ray photons.

Blazars are highly variable sources, often undergoing rapid and dramatic fluctuations in brightness on short timescales (hours to days).

In 2009, a team of astronomers using the Swift spacecraft used the luminosity of S5 0014+81 to measure the mass of its super-massive black hole. They found it to be about 10,000 times more massive than the black hole at the center of our galaxy, or equivalent to 40 billion solar masses

  • Osirus
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    1 year ago

    I’m no spacey star science guy, but does anyone else find it odd that nuclei are like little sun’s or black holes even because they are so dense and protons electrons and neutrons all have an… let’s call it an orbit around them like little planets. It can’t be a coincidence, right??

    • Pons_Aelius@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      To take this one step further.

      The three things we need to completely describe an elementary particle. (proton, neutron, electron, anti-proton, etc)

      Mass.

      Charge.

      Spin.

      The three things we need to completely describe a black hole.

      Mass.

      Charge.

      Spin.

    • Laticauda@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      To be fair, the orbit of electrons (neutrons are actually in the centre with the protons, not orbiting the nucleus) are nothing like planets. They’re more like what happens when a cat gets stuck in a plastic bag and starts rocketing around the house at Mach 500. Their movement is so unpredictable that we can never actually say for sure where an electron is at any given moment, instead we can only map a cloud of probability, mapping out a general area where the electron is most likely to be. That’s why when you look up the more complex electron orbitals outside of the basic 2d rings, they end up looking like a bunch of funky balloons. The balloons are those “most likely to be” areas.

      • Osirus
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        1 year ago

        Yeah but time and speed are relative. For something that small, the speed may be slower. Same with bugs that only live a day, that amt of time could feel much much longer to them. I understand that electrons they aren’t like OUR planets but there are solarsystems out there that are chaotic and still figuring our a stable orbit. If the things around the solar system are constantly changing and colliding, so do the orbits. Merging of atoms could be seen something like the merging of galaxies. Atleast that’s my best understanding of it all. Like I said, I’m no astrophysicist or whatever but they seem oddly similar.

        • Laticauda@lemmy.ca
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          1 year ago

          but there are solarsystems out there that are chaotic and still figuring our a stable orbit

          They still don’t orbit the way electrons orbit. It’s not just a speed thing, the way they move is fundamentally different.

          • Osirus
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            1 year ago

            I mean, I’m sure you are right, I just think the similarities are oddly close.