What is a quasar? And do quasars pose any danger to us on Earth?
In the Yahoo! Quasars category we discovered an excellent FAQ (a list of frequently asked questions and their answers) concerning these mysterious astronomical entities. These questions were submitted to Virginia Tech’s Department of Physics by a host of K-12 students. The cool name “quasar” comes from the phrase “quasi-stellar radio source.” Quasars are very bright centers of young galaxies that are incredibly far away. The light they generate takes billions of years to reach us, so that looking at a quasar is like viewing the birth of a galaxy long, long ago. The good news is that they’re not dangerous. Though they emit an enormous amount of energy (probably as a result of black holes), the “total energy collected by radio astronomers over the history of radio astronomy amounts to about the energy required for a mosquito to make one p
