Asri-unix.871 net.space utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!ARPAVAX:C70:sri-unix!YOUNG@DEC-MARLBORO Mon Mar 1 13:19:37 1982 [DD-B : for space digest -- Implacations of quasar findings] - - - - - - - Begin message from: DD-B Date: 1 Mar 1982 1316-EST From: DD-B To: young at MARKET Reply-to: DYER-BENNET at KL2137 DTN: 231-4076 Mailstop: MR1-2/L14 Subject: for space digest -- Implacations of quasar findings Message-ID: <"MS5(1715)+GLXLIB1(1033)" 11804281766.40.253.73939 at KL2137> I've been wondering if the possible change in the status of quasars is potentially damaging to large chunks of cosmological theory. So has a friend, and she took the trouble to dig up at least a little basis for the worry. The source, of course, is old and not terribly authoritative. Anybody know anything more about the consequences of not-so-old much-closer quasars on the rest of our understanding of the universe? - - - - - - - Begin message from: DYER-BENNET.DEAN Date: 1 Mar 1982 1305-EST From: DYER-BENNET.DEAN To: DYER-BENNET Reply-to: DYER-BENNET.DEAN at KL2137 From-the-terminal-of: Pamela C. Dean Subject: Quasars Message-ID: <"MS5(1715)+GLXLIB1(1033)" 11804279832.29.526.32241 at KL2137> "The mere existence of quasars and BSO's ["blue stellar objects; i.e., blue stars as distant, luminous, and small as quasars, but lacking the characteristic microwave emission, he says elsewhere -- pcd] was a heavy and perhaps even fatal blow at the steady-state theory. All of them are very far away and were therefore formed many eons ago. Since none can be detected in our own neighborhood, it seems that whatever processes formed them are not operative now... . This, in turn, means that the Universe was different in important ways, eons ago." Isaac Asimov, THE UNIVERSE, 1966 -- who knows what they've decided since then? Anyway, he goes on to say that some astronomers believe that quasars establish the big-bang theory, confirm theories of how long ago it was, and even allow them to decide between the hyperbolic and pulsating versions thereof. Gosh, Professor, sounds important to me. ======== - - - - - - - End forwarded message -------- - - - - - - - End forwarded message --------