ForumIAS announcing GS Foundation Program for UPSC CSE 2025-26 from 19 April. Click Here for more information.
ForumIAS Answer Writing Focus Group (AWFG) for Mains 2024 commencing from 24th June 2024. The Entrance Test for the program will be held on 28th April 2024 at 9 AM. To know more about the program visit: https://forumias.com/blog/awfg2024
Source: The post is based on the article “Observations from 11 global telescopes lead to detection of the brightest flare of a century-old blazar” published in PIB on 18th May 2023
What is the News?
The brightness of BL Lacertae (BL Lac), a blazar discovered almost a century ago has been found to have reached its maxima.
What is BL Lacertae (BL Lac)?
BL Lacertae object or BL Lac object is a type of active galactic nucleus(AGN).
It is located about 950 million light years from the Earth.
Note: Active galactic nuclei (AGN) are located in the core of the galaxy. They are compact structures showing anomalous luminosity from time to time.
– The deviation in their brightness levels can vary and last either for a few hours, days, weeks or even months.
– This luminosity variance, when seen with the naked human eye, is nothing but electromagnetic emissions that are visible across the radio, microwave, infrared, optical, ultraviolet, X-ray and gamma wavelengths.
What have researchers found about BL Lacertae (BL Lac)?
Researchers found that the flare emanated from BL Lac had reached the maxima.
This was detected using the continuous observations made by an ensemble of eleven optical telescopes located across the world. One among them was the Himalayan Chandra Telescope located in Ladakh’s Hanle.