Astronomy: The Questions of Quasars

What is a quasar? Answers were almost as numerous as the astronomers who turned up at the Montreal meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. New theories about the nature of "quasi-stellar sources" have only generated new arguments; new observations have only enlarged the uncertainty. About all that the assembled scientists could agree on with confidence was that Dr. Maarten Schmidt of Mt. Wilson and Palomar observatories was the proper choice for astronomy's prestigious Helen B. Warner prize.

The modest, good-humored stargazer, who was born in The Netherlands and...

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