quasars and consequence of technology

Many of us know of black holes, but not so much about quasars. Quasars are the result of a supermassive black hole WITH a large amount of accretion. The quasar is actually the area surrounding the black hole that can emit more power than 2 trillion suns.It is because they are so luminous that it is so very difficult to distinguish them from the galaxy moving around them.This is where the consequence of our technology becomes apparent. Our technology seems to limit our ability to observe some phenomenon. Even with our limitations, the universe is so large that there is always something to look at in the sky.

Astronomers have found several quasars that act as a magnifying glass to the galaxies shadowed by the quasar. This is both amazing and difficult because there is so much gravity at the quasar and the quasar is so bright. Because of these reasons, astronomers looked for the spectral imprint of galaxies using Hubble's sharp view to look for gravitational arcs and rings that would be produced by gravitational lensing. these are indicated by the arrows in these three Hubble photos. Quasar host galaxies are impossibly hard to see because the central quasar far outshines the galaxy and this also makes it difficult to estimate the mass of a host galaxy based on the collective brightness of its stars. This is another benefit of lensing quasars. The magnification of the image behind the quasar gives a good understanding of the gravity, and therefore mas, of the quasar host galaxy. The next step for astronomers is to catalog as many quasar lenses so that they can use the limited technology they have to discover things further into space and in greater detail.