Word: farthermost
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...objects that astronomers have found in the skies, quasars are the most enigmatic. Though they resemble ordinary stars when viewed through optical telescopes, they are billions of lightyears* away, the farthermost objects in the observable universe. But to be seen through ordinary telescopes and detected by radio telescopes at those distances, quasars must radiate more energy than entire galaxies, which are giant islands of billions of stars. Now, while trying to explain what quasars are and how they radiate so much energy, astronomers have been confronted by yet another mystery: twin quasars...
...greater the red shift of light from a galaxy, or island of stars, the farther away the galaxy is from the earth. Indeed, using the red shift from some quasars as a yardstick indicates that they could be 10 billion or more light-years away-making them the farthermost objects ever observed in the heavens by astronomers...
Dipping to within 112 miles of the moon at its perilune, or closest ap proach, and swinging out to 1,145 miles at its apilune, or farthermost distance, Orbiter will remain "parked" in high or bit until late this week. Another blast of its retrorocket will then place it in an orbit that will come within 28 miles of the moon. Only then will its cameras go into action to shoot medium-and high-resolution landing site pictures...
While strict interpretation of Hubble's law would place the farthermost quasars more than 8 billion light-years from the earth, Schmidt refuses to assign a specific distance for any beyond the closest: 3C 273. "We do not know that Hubble's law applies at cosmological distances," he explains. "All we can really say is that if the universe is 10 billion years old, then light from the farthermost quasars has been on the way to us for more than 8 billion years. When the light we see today left the farthermost quasars, the earth and the solar...
...finding the quasar with the largest red shift. In December, University of California Astronomer Margaret Burbidge briefly held the record, with an observed red shift for quasar 0106 + 01, indicating that it was racing away from the earth at 81.2% of the speed erf light and was the farthermost object known. In January, however, Schmidt found another quasar (1116+12) with a red shift that is even greater and a correspondingly greater velocity. "I feel a little embarrassed about it," he says. "This thing had to be just 1% above Margaret's." So far, about 90 quasars have been...