Question

How much energy do quasars give off?

Answer 1

By feeding black hole.

Explanation:

Quasar are massive sources of Energy. Most Quasars have Luminosity of about `10^40` watts . The Luminosity of our Sun is 3.6 x `10^26` watts. With this much Energy a Quasar if placed in the Place of Pluto at about 40 Astronomical Units from the Sun. It will burn the Earth's oceans in about 1/5 of a second.

There are a number of Theories defining how Quasars generate this much energy.

i) They may be powered by Nuclear Fusion like a Normal Star,

ii) Gravitational Potential Energy due to an Object arriving at the Event Horizon of a Black hole.

The Problem with Nuclear Fusion is that with Such high Luminosity the Star will have to burn about a Solar mass of material per day. At this rate soon the Star will have only Iron in the Core. Iron being inert will not allow further Fusion reactions and the Star will collapse into a black hole.

So, we are left with the second option. The only problem with Second option is that Scientists have detected Quasars at a Red-Shift of 7. This means that the Black hole must have formed only about 700 million years after the big bang. This is not possible because at that time only fewer galaxies were formed, how is it possible that a black hole of a billion solar masses is formed so early.