A blazar is an active galactic nucleus (AGN) with a relativistic jet (a jet composed of ionized matter traveling at nearly the speed of light) directed towards an observer.

Blazars are powerful sources of emission across the electromagnetic spectrum and are observed to be sources of high-energy gamma ray photons.

Blazars are highly variable sources, often undergoing rapid and dramatic fluctuations in brightness on short timescales (hours to days).

In 2009, a team of astronomers using the Swift spacecraft used the luminosity of S5 0014+81 to measure the mass of its super-massive black hole. They found it to be about 10,000 times more massive than the black hole at the center of our galaxy, or equivalent to 40 billion solar masses

    • Pons_Aelius@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      10
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      It is likely to be neither. The last major or minor planet is not the edge of the solar system.

      The size of the solar system is much larger than that.

      One definition is the outer limit of the oort cloud. ( the furthest objects in orbit around the sun)

      Pluto is, on average 39 AU (AU = sun to earth distance) from the sun.

      The Oort cloud starts at ~20,000 AU and finishes at 200,000 AU.

      Another is the Heliopause.

      The heilopause is the volume of a bubble of space that is filled with the solar wind. At the heliopause the outward solar wind pressure is balanced with the pressure of the interstellar medium.

      That is at about 120 AU.

      If they used the heilopause: the circle is 4 times bigger than the orbit of Pluto.

      If they used the Oort cloud, the circle is 500 times bigger than the orbit of Pluto.

      • Rhaedas@kbin.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        1 year ago

        You are right scientifically, but since this was probably made for the public, the orbits of the planets tend to be what is pictured as “the solar system”. Anyway, given the scale presented, all these different boundaries still look like a dot so it doesn’t matter.