Maarten Schmidt · Asteria Star

Biography

Maarten Schmidt cracked the mystery of quasars. In 1963 he realised that the strange spectrum of the radio source 3C 273 was ordinary hydrogen shifted far to the red, placing the object billions of light-years away — and meaning it shone with the light of trillions of suns. Quasars were thus revealed as the brilliant cores of distant active galaxies.

Scientific contributions

Identified the enormous redshift of the quasar 3C 273 (1963)
Revealed quasars as the most luminous objects in the universe

Major discoveries

The Discovery of Quasars1963 CE

Observatories, instruments & objects

Worked at

Palomar Observatory

Knowledge connections

Sources & references

Facts on this topic will be cited from these primary and reference sources.

BritannicaEncyclopaedia Britannica
General reference for the history of astronomy, biographies, and cultural context.
NASANational Aeronautics and Space Administration
Mission data, planetary science, space telescopes, and public-domain imagery.
Most NASA-produced imagery is in the public domain; individual items are checked for usage terms before publication.

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