Four random quasars in a straight line?

[jimgraber]

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/05/150315-quadruple-quasar-mystery-space-astronomy/National Geographic quoting Dr Hennawi, the lead author of the Science paper, says it is a ten million to one chance to find four quasars so close together. How much more unusual is it that in the first close four quasar configuration discovered they lie very closely on a straight line?? I think this is preposterously unlikely, but seeing is believing, as they say.

 

[wabbit]

http://arxiv.org/abs/1505.03786
Quasar Quartet Embedded in Giant Nebula Reveals Rare Massive Structure in Distant Universe
Joseph F. Hennawi, J. Xavier Prochaska, Sebastiano Cantalupo, Fabrizio Arrigoni-Battaia (Submitted on 14 May 2015)

All galaxies once passed through a hyperluminous quasar phase powered by accretion onto a supermassive black hole. But because these episodes are brief, quasars are rare objects typically separated by cosmological distances. In a survey for Lyman-alpha emission at redshift z ~ 2, we discovered a physical association of four quasars embedded in a giant nebula. Located within a substantial overdensity of galaxies, this system is probably the progenitor of a massive galaxy cluster. The chance probability of finding a quadruple quasar is estimated to be ~10^-7, implying a physical connection between Lyman-alpha nebulae and the locations of rare protoclusters. Our findings imply that the most massive structures in the distant universe have a tremendous supply (~ 10^11 solar masses) of cool dense (volume density ~1 cm^-3) gas, which is in conflict with current cosmological simulations.

 

[Andrekosmos]

Notice all the irregular blobs deformed by the gravitational interaction between them and quasars which appears to have played a role in the formation of this relationship thus possibly reducing the chances as mentioned due to the dense cluster nebula, we would need to do more observations to find a possible pattern, this pattern should be more common in the early universe; a frontier in which we have only began studying.

 

[AgentSmith]

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/05/150315-quadruple-quasar-mystery-space-astronomy/National Geographic quoting Dr Hennawi, the lead author of the Science paper, says it is a ten million to one chance to find four quasars so close together. How much more unusual is it that in the first close four quasar configuration discovered they lie very closely on a straight line?? I think this is preposterously unlikely, but seeing is believing, as they say.

They may appear to be in a straight line from earth, but remember they are in a 3D space. They would not appear in a straight line from another vantage point. I would question any odds. And seeing ain't always believing in space. Or in a photoshopped picture.

 

[wabbit]

The quasars are I believe located in 3D, at least presumptively from their redshift. And even for the distribution of objects on the 2D celestial sphere, the projected distribution can be modeled. I don't recall the figures, but if on average there are 0.001 visible quasars for a given solid angle, and you see four within such an area, there is something odd.

That being said, I have no idea if their statistics are sound or not, it would be interesting to hear more about it.

 

[jimgraber]

Possibly all four quasars are formed in the same monsterous accretion disk and so all lie naturally in a plane. Now all we require is that the plane is edge on to us, which has a probability of a few percent purely by chance. Still since this is so far as i know, the first and only case, it still appears to be somewhat unexpected.

 

[Chronos]

This sounds like Arpian statistics to me. Assuming there are billions of quasars in the observable universe what are the odds 4 lay on the same line of sight. Not highly improbable IMO.