Meaning of voorwerp | Babel Free

Definitions

An ionization or light echo, especially the quasar ionization echo known as Hanny's Voorwerp.

Examples

“The voorwerp turns out to be a cloud of gas tens of thousands of light-years across, which has somehow been heated to high enough temperatures to emit visible light⟳. The exact mechanism of the heating is still under debate⟳, but probably[…]”

“Other voorwerps have⟳ since been spotted, but Hanny holds the distinction of finding the first, with nothing more exotic than a public website and the power of the human brain.”

“But regardless of which explanation is correct⟳, or even if some other explanation is needed, the voorwerp is fascinating. Suppose⟳, for instance, that it really is a quasar mirror. As we've seen, this means that the voorwerp is a huge collection of mirrors, echoing the light⟳ of the quasar at many different times over the quasar's lifetime. That means light⟳ from the voorwerp is a bit like⟳ a biography of the quasar, […] There's even a voorwerp project, and the Zooites have⟳ successfully hunted down several more voorwerps. In all, Galaxy Zoo has been used to write⟳ 22 scientific papers, on a wide variety of topics, and many more papers are on the way.”

CEFR level