Key Found to Birth of Super-Galaxies
By Robert Roy Britt
Senior Science Writer
posted: 23 March 2006
01:33 pm ET

Astronomers have spotted what they think is evidence for the ignition switch that turns on
super-bright galaxies called quasars.

The trigger was likely the merger of two galaxies, researchers said today.

Quasars were first detected in the 1950s based on emissions of radio waves. Astronomers
thought they were strange nearby stars. Later they figured out the brilliant beacons were
billions of light-years away.

That's how they got the name quasar, which is short for quasi-stellar radio sources.
How quasars are born has remained a mystery.

NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory detected hot, X-ray regions around two distant quasars.

"The X-ray features are likely shock waves that could be a direct result of the turning
on of the quasar about 4 billion years ago," said Alan Stockton of the University of Hawaii
in Honolulu, and lead author of a report on the findings in the Astrophysical Journal.

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/060323_quasars.html

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