CTA 102, also known by its B1950 coordinates as 2230+114 (QSR B2230+114) and its J2000 coordinates as J2232+1143 (QSO J2232+1143), is a blazar-type quasar discovered in the early 1960s by a radio survey carried out by the California Institute of Technology. [3]

Nov 23, 2016 · The normally faint quasar CTA 102, once thought to harbor an advanced civilization and made famous in a 1967 song by the Byrds, is currently bright enough to see in an 8-inch telescope. This VLBA image of the jet from quasar CTA 102 in Pegasus shows the historically bright outburst.

Dec 4, 2017 · Here we report the results of optical-to-radio-wavelength monitoring of the blazar CTA 102 and show that the observed long-term trends of the flux and spectral variability are best explained by...

CTA 102, also known by its B1950 coordinates as 2230+114 (QSR B2230+114) and its J2000 coordinates as J2232+1143 (QSO J2232+1143), is a blazar -type quasar discovered in the early 1960s by a radio survey carried out by the California Institute of Technology.

CTA-102 is a powerful celestial source of radio waves and proposed, in 1963, by N. S. Kardashev as evidence of a Type Two or Three Kardashev civilization.

CTA-102 is an active quasar, which is a supermassive black hole at the center of a remote galaxy. The brightness goes up when the black hole is eating a hearty meal of stars and gas. What is interesting about this quasar is that it is an astounding 8 billion light years away from us.

Jan 15, 2025 · CTA 102 is a γ -ray bright blazar that exhibited multiple flares in observations by the Large Area Telescope on board the Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope during the period of 2016-2018. We present results from the analysis of multi-wavelength light curves aiming at revealing the nature of γ -ray flares from the relativistic jet in the blazar.

Aug 16, 2018 · We report on broadband observations of CTA 102 (z = 1.037) during the active states in 2016–2017. In the γ -ray band, Fermi -LAT observed several prominent flares that followed a harder-when-brighter behavior: the hardest photon index Γ = 1.61 ± 0.10 being unusual for flat-spectrum radio quasars.

The flat spectrum radio quasar CTA 102 ( z = 1.032 ) went through a tremendous phase of variability. Since early 2016 the gamma-ray flux level has been significantly higher than in previous years. It was topped by a four month long giant outburst, where peak fluxes were more than 100 times higher than the quiescence level.

The γ-ray-bright blazar CTA 102 is studied using imaging (new 15GHz and archival 43GHz Very Long Baseline Array, VLBA data) and time variable optical flux density, polarization degree, and electric vector position angle