Object Analysis

3C 273 is a quasar located in the constellation of Virgo. It was the first quasar ever to be identified. In the early 1960s, radio astronomers detected radio sources with optical counterparts that looked like stars but had inexplicable spectra. Maarten Schmidt realized in 1963 that the spectrum of 3C 273 was simply hydrogen shifted to the red by 15.8%, indicating it was receding at an immense velocity.

Located 2.4 billion light-years away, 3C 273 is the optically brightest quasar in our sky (magnitude ~12.9) and one of the most luminous objects in the known universe. If it were located as close as Pollux (about 34 light-years away), it would appear nearly as bright as the Sun in our sky. Its luminosity is generated by a supermassive black hole consuming matter at a prodigious rate.

The object has a large-scale visible jet that extends about 200,000 light-years from the quasar, which is visible in high-resolution images. 3C 273 was fundamental in establishing that the universe is expanding and that these "quasi-stellar radio sources" were actually the active cores of distant, young galaxies.