Asri-unix.953 net.space utcsrgv!utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!ARPAVAX:C70:sri-unix!REM@MIT-MC Wed Mar 10 14:29:15 1982 Superluminal quasars If a quasar is a brand-new galaxy, shining mostly by very-massive (and thus short-lived) stars, in fact perhaps shining mostly by the accumulated light of supernovas, it's quite possible that a single supernova could change the brightness measurably within a period of hours and that if several supernovas just happen to occasionally explode at the same apparent time as measured by light that reaches Earth, that the galaxy may appear to double brightness in a few days. -- I don't recall just how significant the changes are that are observed to take a few days. Are they doublings of brightness, or just a percent or so? If they are factors of ten increase in brightness then I'd tend to reject my supernova theory, but a few percent usual and doubling on rare occasions would be satisfied by the galaxy&supernova theory. ----------------------------------------------------------------- gopher://quux.org/ conversion by John Goerzen of http://communication.ucsd.edu/A-News/ This Usenet Oldnews Archive article may be copied and distributed freely, provided: 1. There is no money collected for the text(s) of the articles. 2. The following notice remains appended to each copy: The Usenet Oldnews Archive: Compilation Copyright (C) 1981, 1996 Bruce Jones, Henry Spencer, David Wiseman.