Word: schmidts
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Mere Peanuts. Quasars have actually presented a greater challenge to physicists, who have been working overtime to deal with the implications of Schmidt's discoveries. How can such relatively small bodies generate enough light to be seen billions of light-years away? Where did the energy come from? Early observations suggested that the quasars were only a fifth or as little as a hundredth the size of an average galaxy, which is about 100,000 light-years in diameter. Yet the quasars' light is as much as 100 times more brilliant than light from an ordinary galaxy-despite...
...following year, after earning his doctorate from Leiden, Schmidt won one of the greatest prizes available to a talented young astronomer: a Carnegie Institution fellowship. With it he gained entrée into the stimulating atmosphere of Pasadena's California Institute of Technology, and access to the fabulous astronomical complex in Southern California. There, all within easy driving distance of Los Angeles, the world's greatest telescopes point skyward. Atop Mount Palomar is the 200-in. Hale telescope and a 48-in. Schmidt (no relation) wide-angle scope. On Mount Wilson is a 100-in. telescope...
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...
Embarrassing Record. In the three years since Schmidt made his discovery, noted astronomers have spent long nights vying for the distinction of 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...
...time young Maarten had enrolled at the University of Groningen, where he studied mathematics, physics and astronomy, his dedication to astronomy had begun to alarm his father, a government accountant. "How can you earn your daily bread by looking at the stars?", the elder Schmidt asked repeatedly. He was placated only by a direct appeal from University Astronomy Professor Adriaan Blaauw, who saw in the eager young student the makings of an able professional. Upon graduation in 1949, Schmidt was offered a job at the University of Leiden Observatory as an assistant to Astronomer Jan Hendrik Oort, who is famous...