August 24, 1996
The universe has spent billions of years making things that shine. On your birthday, we celebrate one of its quieter masterpieces.
Why is QSO 1229+204 so Bright?
Birthday · August 24, 1996
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APOD published August 24, 1996. Full image credits are on the original APOD entry below. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
What causes the center of this barred spiral galaxy to light up brighter than almost anything in the universe? The quasar there is a good fraction of the way across our observable universe but appears so bright that astronomers had to use the high resolving power of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) just to see the host galaxy. HST then resolved something very interesting. Not only was QSO 1229+204 at the core of an unusual barred spiral galaxy, but this galaxy was in the process of colliding with a dwarf galaxy. Gas from this collision quite possibly fuels a supermassive black hole causing QSO 1229+204 to shine so brightly.