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Miguel de Luis
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Could quasars be generating energy from fusion? I mean with all that material falling on it...
Miguel de Luis said:Could quasars be generating energy from fusion? I mean with all that material falling on it...
The sun doesn't have a solid surface either. Black holes have accretion disks (that's where the radiation comes from).DrSteve said:That "it" is presumably is black hole, which has no solid surface on which matter might fuse, unlike a white dwarf or neutron star
Quasars are extremely bright, distant objects in space that emit huge amounts of energy. They are believed to be powered by supermassive black holes at the center of galaxies. As matter falls towards the black hole, it releases large amounts of energy in the form of light and other forms of radiation.
Yes, it is believed that fusion reactions can occur in the accretion disks surrounding the supermassive black holes in quasars. This is because the extreme temperatures and pressures in these disks provide the necessary conditions for fusion to take place.
The fusion reactions in the accretion disk of a quasar release even more energy than the gravitational energy of the matter falling towards the black hole. This greatly increases the total energy output of the quasar.
While quasars do release enormous amounts of energy, they are located billions of light years away from Earth and it is currently not possible to harness this energy for human use. Additionally, the energy released by quasars is in the form of radiation which is difficult to capture and convert into usable energy.
If we were able to harness fusion energy from quasars, it could potentially provide an almost limitless source of energy for human use. However, the technological challenges of capturing and converting this energy, as well as the ethical and environmental considerations, make this an unlikely possibility in the near future.