In the history of astronomy, the oldest of the Sciences, there was no time as rich in the most outstanding discoveries as our days. Especially happy was the last decade, including the discovery of quasars in 1963, it Was discovered cosmic microwave background radiation, pulsars were known, followed the discovery of neutron stars in close binary systems, invisible crowns of galaxies, black holes, apparent superluminal motions in quasars.
In 1963 the American astronomer of Dutch origin, Mr. Schmidt has made one of the greatest discoveries in astronomy of the twentieth century This discovery, however, has its own history. Around 1960, a small number of radio sources were very reliably identified with the stars, which was a complete surprise. Until now, cosmic radio sources have been identified either with galaxies or with nebulae. The expected radio fluxes, even from the closest stars, should be very small. Meanwhile, radio sources identified with the stars were quite intense. It is quite natural that optical astronomers immediately became interested in these stars. M. Schmidt obtained and studied the spectrum of such a fairly bright star of the 13th magnitude, identified with an intense radio source 3C 273. This spectrum contained lines of radiation, which are initially to any laboratory lines to identify failed. Great was the amazement of astronomers, when Schmidt with full certainty identified these lines with the main lines of hydrogen Balmer series, the wavelengths of which are shifted to the red side at an unheard of in those days, the value corresponding to the rate of removal of the source 42000 km / s! This removal rate is likely to mean that object 3C 273 is in Metagalaxy, and the observed red shift of spectral lines is due to the expansion of the Universe. With such distances astronomers have not yet met. All the more surprising that, despite the enormity of the distance, the object 3C 273 is quite bright. It follows that the luminosity of 3C 273 is approximately one hundred times higher than the luminosity of our Galaxy, which is considered a giant star system. With objects of such high luminosity astronomers have not yet met. It should be noted that the amazing properties of the object 3C 273 were discovered only because it turned out to be a radio source. Immediately after clarification of the metagalactic nature of 3C 273, the author of this article came to the paradoxical conclusion that the brilliance of 3C 273 can change over time. Soviet astronomers A. S. Sharov, and J. N. Efremov carefully researched old photos of the sky, which accidentally got this object. The results exceeded the wildest expectations: 3C 273 changed its Shine in a few years by almost an entire magnitude, i.e. about 2.5 times! Soon the opening of the Soviet scientists was confirmed by the more rich observational material in the United States.
Up to this time, astronomers have discovered and studied the variability of different types of stars. From the simple fact that the characteristic time of flux change was about 1 year, it was obvious that the linear dimensions of the emitting region did not exceed 1 light year – a value negligible for galaxies. Hence the conclusion that radiate not stars, and something else. With regard to this “other” one could only say that it is an object, to a certain extent close in nature to the nuclei of Seifert galaxies, but only a thousand times more powerful and active. By the way, we note that historically the variability of the brightness of the nuclei of Seifert galaxies was discovered later, and the study of these galaxies was largely stimulated by the study of objects related in nature to 3C 273 and called “quasars” “quasi-star radio sources” (“quasi-star” objects).
Quasars 