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Blazars are a type of active galactic nuclei (AGN) that emit powerful relativistic jets of plasma perpendicular to the accretion disk. They are a subclass of active galaxies and can be observed billions of light-years away. Blazars are made brighter by a relativistic beam and their brightness is affected by the orientation of the jet towards us.
Blazars are among the brightest phenomena in the universe other than the Big Bang. They are a subtype of active galactic nuclei (AGN), which are created when large clouds of dust and gas generate tremendous friction as they are sucked into a supermassive black hole. This accretion of matter forms a ring-like structure called an accretion disk. Perpendicular to the plane of the disk, powerful relativistic jets of plasma (near the speed of light) are released, which can be observed from Earth using optical/radio telescopes if the jet is aimed at us. Otherwise, the blazar may not be observable from our point of view.
As a group, objects with the above properties are called active galaxies. The light released by relativistic jets is so powerful that it can be observed billions of light-years away. Blazars are a subclass of active galaxies, which includes two types of objects: OVV (optically violent variable) quasars and BL Lacertae objects. Both are characterized by polarized light and a high variability in energy production. This variability is caused by the “coarseness” of the matter falling into the blazar’s central black hole.
Blazars were initially misidentified as variable stars in our galaxy. Measurement of their redshift proved otherwise: these objects are seen to be billions of light-years away, which also means that they are billions of years old. Blazars and other active galaxies are much more common in today’s early universe, presumably because matter in the galaxies either settled into stable orbits around the central supermassive black hole (which is suspected to exist in every galaxy) or was sucked up a long time ago. does .
Blazars are made even brighter by an effect called a relativistic beam. As Einstein demonstrated, time slows down to speeds approaching the speed of light. Plasma jets move at a substantial percentage of the speed of light, so from our perspective, more plasma is ejected in a given amount of time, and as a result, the beam appears brighter. Another very important factor is the orientation of the jet towards us &mndash; even a few degrees can make differences of orders of magnitude in brightness factor.
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