Accretion disk
The bright flattened structure represents hot infalling plasma radiating strongly across the electromagnetic spectrum.
Quasar lab
3C 273 as an active galactic nucleus study scene.
Interactive WebGL view of a quasar core with black hole, accretion disk, broad-line glow, polar jets, distance scaling, and a startable radio-style sonification layer.
Drag to rotate
Wheel to zoom
Right-drag to pan
WebGL quasar lab is initializing. If modules are blocked, use the astronomy guide and sky map pages.
Interpretation
What the scene is showing
Polar jets
Twin jets visualize collimated relativistic outflows launched along the rotational axis of the central engine.
Broad-line region
Inner glowing particle shells suggest gas clouds moving in the deep gravitational potential near the nucleus.
Sonification
The audio maps disk pulse rate, jet power, and flux-style variability to audible oscillators and filtered noise for a research-desk style listen mode.
Scale caution
Real quasar size scales run from event-horizon radii to kiloparsec jets. A web scene must compress those scales to keep them legible.
Use case
This is an educational AGN structure simulator for orientation and discussion, not a numerical magnetohydrodynamic or radiative-transfer solver.
Mathematical model
Black-hole and accretion-disk model
Black-hole visuals use theoretical scaling equations for the event horizon, photon-ring marker, and optically thick accretion disk. They are educational WebGL approximations, not numerical general-relativistic ray-tracing renders.
Event-horizon scale
\[R_s=\frac{2GM}{c^2}\]
The black silhouette is scaled from the Schwarzschild radius relation. Mass changes the horizon scale through G, M, and c, not through image tracing.
Thin-disk temperature
\[T(r)^4 \propto r^{-3}\left[1-\sqrt{\frac{R_{\mathrm{in}}}{r}}\right]\]
The annular disk brightness and color are assigned from the standard steady thin-disk radial profile, so inner rings are hotter and outer rings cool by equation.
Keplerian disk flow
\[\Omega(r)=\sqrt{\frac{GM}{r^3}}\]
Orbiting gas is represented as differentially rotating annuli and flow bands. The visual proof is that angular speed decreases with radius as Keplerian motion requires.
Verification standard: the rendered object must be reproducible from stated equations, catalog parameters, or explicit geometric transforms. Visual reference images may inform presentation only; they are not the source of orbital positions, field vectors, accretion-disk gradients, timing, or engineering layout.
Limitations: browser scenes may use bounded scale, compressed distances, simplified two-body dynamics, schematic transfer curves, or educational approximations where full numerical ephemerides, CFD, finite-element models, or general-relativistic ray tracing are outside the page scope. Those simplifications are part of the model contract, not hidden image-based construction.