Quasar 4C71.07 was discovered in optical light in 1989. Quasars resemble stars but release energy with the power of more than 1,000 galaxies. In visible light, 4C 71.07 is less than impressive, just a distant speck of light. Gamma rays, non-visible energy bursts that blitz past Earth about once a day from random points in the sky, were discovered by accident in the 1960s. They are invisible to humans, are about 1 million times more powerful than optical light, yet invisible.
Astronomers think they are created during the universe's most cataclysmic events.
The black hole at the center of the quasar probably is surrounded by a ring or cloud of gas and stars that gradually fall into the matter-sucking vacuum, said William Paciesas, of the University of Alabama. He is part of a team at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama that developed ways to analyze archived Compton data. When that matter goes down the drain, it is heated to high energies and emits lots of X-rays and gamma rays, Paciesas said. With such measurements, astronomers could observe large numbers of high-energy sources over long periods of time, he said. In the X-ray range, most of the radiation blanket is made of active galaxies at a great distance, she said.