Blog 2: Quasars Found to Spit Out Rubies, Sapphires

article written on Oct. 11, 2007
by Ker Than

A new study shows evidence of abnormal amounts of glass, rubies and sapphires being expelled from supermassive black holes surrounded by dust clouds and radiation known as quasars. Scientists using NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope analyzed light from the region around the quasar using and found small amounts of these materials as well as sand and marble. This new information is important to solving the question of where dust came from that was used to form the first generation of stars in the universe. The article states that one possibility that is being further explored is that dust came from quasars such as the one found to be ejecting rubies and sapphires. These regions are the most feasible possibility because the gravity from the black hole pulls material towards its center while the pressure from this pull blows material out which results in star formation. Sarah Gallagher of the University of California is testing this idea through the use of Spitzer and has detected the unexpected materials such as sapphires which are short lived due to the surrounding environment which implies that they were just made. This possibility helps explain how the massive stars which created the current dust in our part of the universe were created.

This article definitely presented one of the more interesting discoveries I've read about in the past month or so. There haven't been many ground-breaking discoveries in astronomy recently which is why I chose to blog this article when I found it. I'd be curious to see just what caused these scientists to search for evidence of such minerals seeing as this would not be something I would immediately associate with quasars however the ApJ article hasn't come out yet so hopefully it will help explain further.

Article found at: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,300856,00.html?sPage=fnc.science/space