Talk:Quasar

hmm... this artricle seems to conflict with itself, the first paragraph inlcudes the actual description of a Quasar, the second refers to as it was used in TOS (written in the 1960s before they actually knew what a Quasar was).. obviously it can't be both, unless Murasaki 312 is an Active Galactic Nuclei that is somehow inside of another Galaxy?!--205.188.116.66 16:40, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Is there any way of finding out exactly why Captain Kirk's standing orders were to "Explore strange new quasar worlds; to seek out new quasars and new quasar civilizations. To boldly go where no quasar has gone before"? --205.188.116.9 16:40, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Seeing as it wasn't, there is no way to find out, no. --OuroborosCobra talk 16:45, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

history of quasar observation
according to wikipedia article on history of quasar observation, in 1962 (published in 63') it was recognised that strange emission lines of quasar 3C 273 are a consequence of extreme redshift of its emissions, hence, as the article on that particular quasar explains, this established it to be an object several billion light years away (due to Hubble's law on the proportionality of redshift and distance I presume). The article does state that they were rather poorly understood even into the 80's, and contraversy around their distance continued in the 60's, It still seems they were not that uninformed in the 60's to completely excuse the errors TOS made about quasars -  at the very least it seems to me that script writers either didn't care about the current science on the topic, or knowingly choose a very questionable scientific position when placing them within enterprise's reach.
 * Most people didn't believe the redshift, because there was no known mechanism for making something billions upon billions of lightyears away that bright. That would presumably be why they wanted Enterprise to investigate. Next Generation and Voyager had no such excuse96.238.211.171 15:08, May 7, 2013 (UTC)