Magazine content is available exclusively for TIME subscribers.Astronomy: X Rays from a Quasar
Quasars, most astronomers agree, are the oldest, brightest, farthest and most mysterious celestial objects known to man. To this list of superlatives, scientists at the Naval Research Laboratory have now added another. After recording X rays emanating from quasar 3C 273—the first time that a quasar has been identified as an X-ray source —Physicists Herbert Friedman and Edward Byram have determined that 3C 273 is also the most powerful X-ray emitter ever discovered.
The latest addition to quasar knowledge was obtained by instruments carried aboard an Aerobee rocket shot from White Sands, N. Mex., in May. Soaring above the atmosphere,...
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