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What is the difference between a quasar and a pulsar?
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Despite their confusingly similar names, these are very different celestial objects. A pulsar – short for ‘pulsating star’ – is a rapidly spinning neutron star – the remnant of a supernova explosion. It has a powerful magnetic field, shooting out jets of radiation that sweep across space like lighthouse beams. When they line up with Earth they appear as a rapidly repeating burst of light, radio waves and other radiations. A quasar is a distant galaxy with a fluctuating blaze of light and other radiations coming from its central region. The activity in these galaxies is caused by giant black holes at their very hearts, pulling in material from their surroundings, tearing it to shreds and heating it up to tremendous temperatures before swallowing it up.
WHY IS BLOOD RED?
Blood is red because it contains iron, bound up in a ring-like chemical structure called porphyrin within haemoglobin – the protein responsible for carrying oxygen around the body. Haemoglobin is crammed into our red blood cells, making them red too. Red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets are the key components of blood, floating in clear plasma, but the sheer volume of red blood cells gives blood a red colour overall. Oxygen-rich blood is a bright red, whereas deoxygenated blood is a darker brownish red. The veins in your wrists may appear blue, but they are red too – the blue colour is the result of the way light travels through your skin. While all vertebrates share the same colour blood, blue blood does exist – horseshoe crabs have no haemoglobin, having opted instead for haemocyanin, a copperbased protein.