KWAY-zar
QUASAR is a quasi-stellar radio source—an extremely luminous astronomical object powered by supermassive black holes at galactic centers, appearing star-like but radiating energy across the electromagnetic spectrum.
Yes. QUASAR is in the Scrabble-style word list used by our tools and scores 15 points in Scrabble, 16 in Words With Friends and 16 in Wordfeud (base tile values, no board multipliers). Always check the dictionary your game uses (NWL, Collins or the WWF list) before playing.
| Letter | Q | U | A | S | A | R | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scrabble | 10 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 15 |
| Words With Friends | 10 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 16 |
| Wordfeud | 10 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 16 |
Quasars represent one of the universe's most extraordinary phenomena—celestial powerhouses that outshine entire galaxies despite appearing as mere points of light. These quasi-stellar radio sources are among the most distant and luminous objects known to science, powered by supermassive black holes billions of times more massive than our Sun. When matter spirals into these cosmic monsters, it heats to extreme temperatures, radiating energy that can be detected across billions of light-years.
The discovery of quasars in the 1960s revolutionized astronomy. Initially mistaken for stars due to their point-like appearance in telescopes, their enormous redshifts revealed them to be incredibly distant objects receding at significant fractions of light speed. This discovery confirmed the universe's expansion and provided crucial evidence for Big Bang cosmology. The brightest quasar, 3C 273, shines with the luminosity of 2 trillion suns despite being 2.4 billion light-years away.
Quasars serve as cosmic lighthouses, illuminating the early universe. Because light takes time to travel, observing distant quasars allows astronomers to peer back in time, studying conditions when the universe was only a fraction of its current age. These observations reveal how galaxies formed and evolved, how supermassive black holes grew, and how the intergalactic medium changed over cosmic time. Quasars' spectra contain absorption lines from intervening gas clouds, mapping the universe's structure across vast distances.
QUASAR is a portmanteau—a linguistic blend that perfectly captures the object's paradoxical nature. Coined in 1964 by Chinese-American astrophysicist Hong-Yee Chiu, the term combines "quasi-stellar" (meaning "resembling a star") with "radio source," creating a compact designation for these enigmatic objects.
Anagrams: no other word uses exactly the letters of QUASAR.
Hooks: no front hooks; back QUASARS.
Words inside QUASAR: 16 shorter words can be made from these letters – highest scoring: AQUASAQUAQUASUQAURASAURASURAURSAAASARSRASSAU. See all words from QUASAR.