3C 273
| 3C 273 | |
|---|---|
Quasar 3C 273 taken by Hubble Space Telescope.
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| Observation data (Epoch J2000) | |
| Constellation | Virgo |
| Right ascension | 12h 29m 06.7s |
| Declination | +02° 03′ 09″ |
| Redshift | 0.158339 ± 0.000067 |
| Distance | 2.443 Gly (749 Mpc) (luminosity distance) |
| Type | Blazar; Sy1 |
| Apparent magnitude (V) | 12.9 |
| Notable features | optically-brightest quasar, first spectrum of a quasar |
| Other designations | |
| PGC 41121 and HIP 60936 | |
| See also: Quasar, List of quasars | |
3C 273 is a quasar located in the constellation Virgo. It was the first quasar ever to be identified.
It is the optically brightest quasar in the sky (m ~12.9), and one of the closest with a redshift, z, of 0.158. A luminosity distance of DL = 749 megaparsecs (2.4 Gly) may be calculated from z. It is also one of the most luminous quasars known, with an absolute magnitude of −26.7, meaning that if it were only as distant as Pollux (~10 parsecs) it would appear nearly as bright in the sky as the Sun. Since the sun's absolute magnitude is 4.83, it means that the quasar is over 4 trillion times more luminous than the Sun at visible wavelengths. The mass of its central black hole has been measured to be 886 ± 187 million solar masses through broad emission-line reverberation mapping.
The quasar has a large-scale visible jet, which measures ~200 kly (60 kpc) long, having an apparent size of 23″. In 1995 optical imaging of the jet using the Hubble Space Telescope revealed a structured morphology evidenced by repeated bright knots interlaced by areas of weak emission.
The name signifies that it was the 273rd object (ordered by right ascension) of the Third Cambridge Catalog of Radio Sources (3C), published in 1959. After accurate positions were obtained using lunar occultation by Cyril Hazard at the Parkes Radio Telescope, the radio source was quickly associated with an optical counterpart, an unresolved stellar object. In 1963, Maarten Schmidt and Bev Oke published a pair of papers in Nature reporting that 3C 273 has a substantial redshift of 0.158, placing it several billion light-years away.
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