In the 50s or 60s scientists detected astronomical bodies that they called quasars (quasi-stellar bodies) and pulsars. It is now known that quasars are monster black holes in the centers of galaxies (and appear to actually create the galaxies) and pulsars are energy particles streaming from those bodies. If the pulsars are streaming away, how do they escape the gravitational field. Perhaps they are streaming towards the bodies, but that is not what I thought I heard. Further, it was said that they would eventually be absorbed into the hole, which is hard to visualize if they are emanating from the hole.
You’re mixing two different things up.
Pulsar are highly magnetic neutron stars that are rotating incredibly fast. You wind up with beams of electromagnetic radiation emerging from the poles. If you happen to be in the path of those beams, you’ll “hear” them
Quasars are actually incredible active galactic centres, typically having a supermassive black hole sitting in the middle of large concentrations of gas, stars and dust. This “debris” is orbiting the central black hole with material closer in orbiting faster and faster. As the debris falls into the black hole it’s moving so fast and is so hot, it emits radiation. Since the radiation is emitted outside the event horizon it escapes out into space.
Thanks. That clears things up.
And all of the bright glowy stuff in a quasar is stuff that has not yet fallen into the black hole. Once it’s inside, it goes silent, but there’s a lot of action leading up to that point.
Is there a (relatively) simple way to explain the jets that emit from the poles in a quasar?
The short answer is that plasma tends to be channeled along magnetic field lines, and so the only place it can move straight out is at the magnetic poles.
Thanks