Cyril Hazard is a

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

astronomer. He is known for revolutionising

quasar A quasar is an extremely Luminosity, luminous active galactic nucleus (AGN). It is pronounced , and sometimes known as a quasi-stellar object, abbreviated QSO. This emission from a galaxy nucleus is powered by a supermassive black hole with a m ...

observation with

John Bolton John Robert Bolton (born November 20, 1948) is an American attorney, diplomat, Republican consultant, and political commentator. He served as the 25th United States Ambassador to the United Nations from 2005 to 2006, and as the 26th United Stat ...

in 1962. His work allowed other astronomers to find

redshift In physics, a redshift is an increase in the wavelength, and corresponding decrease in the frequency and photon energy, of electromagnetic radiation (such as light). The opposite change, a decrease in wavelength and simultaneous increase in f ...

s from the

emission line A spectral line is a dark or bright line in an otherwise uniform and continuous spectrum, resulting from emission or absorption of light in a narrow frequency range, compared with the nearby frequencies. Spectral lines are often used to iden ...

s from other radio sources.

Early work

Cyri Hasard was born on 18th March 1928 in No.6, Flosh Cottages, Cleator, Cumberland. Cyril Hazard grew up in

Cleator Moor Cleator Moor is a town and civil parish in Cumbria, England, within the historic county of Cumberland. It had a population of 6,936 at the 2011 census. Below Dent Fell, the town is on the Coast to Coast Walk that spans Northern England. ...

Cumberland Cumberland ( ) is a historic county in the far North West England. It covers part of the Lake District as well as the north Pennines and Solway Firth coast. Cumberland had an administrative function from the 12th century until 1974. From 19 ...

.. He got his doctorate from the

University of Manchester , mottoeng = Knowledge, Wisdom, Humanity , established = 2004 – University of Manchester Predecessor institutions: 1956 – UMIST (as university college; university 1994) 1904 – Victoria University of Manchester 1880 – Victoria Univer ...

, studying under

Sir Bernard Lovell Sir Alfred Charles Bernard Lovell (31 August 19136 August 2012) was an English physicist and radio astronomer. He was the first director of Jodrell Bank Observatory, from 1945 to 1980. Early life and education Lovell was born at Oldland Com ...

. He worked first at

Jodrell Bank Jodrell Bank Observatory () in Cheshire, England, hosts a number of radio telescopes as part of the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics at the University of Manchester. The observatory was established in 1945 by Bernard Lovell, a radio astron ...

The discovery

Two radio sources were involved

3C 48 3C48 is a quasar discovered in 1960; it was the second source conclusively identified as such. 3C48 was the first source in the Third Cambridge Catalogue of Radio Sources for which an optical identification was found by Allan Sandage and Thomas A ...

and

3C 273 3C 273 is a quasar located in the constellation of Virgo (constellation), Virgo. It was the first quasar ever to be identified. It is the optically brightest quasar in the sky from Earth (apparent magnitude, m ~12.9), and one of the closest with ...

Measurements taken by Cyril Hazard and John Bolton during one of the

occultation An occultation is an event that occurs when one object is hidden from the observer by another object that passes between them. The term is often used in astronomy, but can also refer to any situation in which an object in the foreground blocks ...

s using the

Parkes Radio Telescope Parkes may refer to: * Sir Henry Parkes (1815–1896), Australian politician, one of the earliest and most prominent advocates for Australian federation Named for Henry Parkes * Parkes, New South Wales, a regional town * Parkes Observatory, a radi ...

allowed

Maarten Schmidt Maarten Schmidt (28 December 1929 – 17 September 2022) was a Dutch-born American astronomer who first measured the distances of quasars. He was the first astronomer to identify a quasar, and so was pictured on the March cover of ''Time'' mag ...

to optically identify the object and obtain an optical spectrum using the

200-inch Hale Telescope The Hale Telescope is a , F-number, 3.3 reflecting telescope at the Palomar Observatory in San Diego County, California, San Diego County, California, US, named after astronomer George Ellery Hale. With funding from the Rockefeller Foundation in ...

Mount Palomar Palomar Mountain ( ; es, Monte Palomar ) is a mountain ridge in the Peninsular Ranges in northern San Diego County. It is famous as the location of the Palomar Observatory and Hale Telescope, and known for the Palomar Mountain State Park. His ...

. This spectrum revealed the same strange emission lines. Schmidt realized that these were actually

spectral line A spectral line is a dark or bright line in an otherwise uniform and continuous spectrum, resulting from emission or absorption of light in a narrow frequency range, compared with the nearby frequencies. Spectral lines are often used to iden ...

s of hydrogen redshifted at the rate of 15.8 percent. This discovery showed that 3C 273 was receding at a rate of 47,000 km/s.

The technique

As the source is occulting behind the moon ( viz. passing behind), Fresnel style diffraction patterns are produced which can be detected by very large radio telescopes and the exact locations calculated.

Memory

The minor planet

9305 Hazard 93 may refer to: * 93 (number) * one of the years 93 BC, AD 93, 1993, 2093, etc. * 93 Seine-Saint-Denis, French department, Paris, Île-de-France * Atomic number 93: neptunium * ''Ninety-Three'', English title of ''Quatrevingt-treize'' (same meanin ...

, discovered on 7 October 1986 by Edward "Ted" Bowell, was named after him.9305 Hazard
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References

Bibliography

*Hazard, C.; Mackey, M. B.; and Shimmeris, A. J. "Investigation of the radio Source 3C273 by the Method of Lunar Occultation." Nature 197, 1037, 1963. 20th-century British astronomers {{astronomer-stub