With a high redshift of 2.86,[1] the object is located 11.2 billion light-years from Earth[2] and is classified as a blazar due to its flat-spectrum radio source,[3] (in terms of the flux density as (Fv ~ V−a) with α < 0.5 and its optical polarization.

[4][5] PKS 0438-436 features the second strongest known synchrotron core,[6][7] in which three strong absorption lines are superposed on Lo emission, and two of them are at longer wavelengths.

This is mainly due to primarily to heavy elements such as Oxygen, Neon, Magnesium, Silicon, Sulfur, raising the possibility of measuring early universe abundances via X-ray absorption in this and like quasars.

PKS 0438-436 may be a high-redshift member of a population of quasars which can contribute to the X-ray background above 2 keV, without being detectable by previous imaging missions.

Firstly, its the large L151, typically indicative of luminous radio lobes in which energy is stored[13] and the lack of a detection in the gamma-rays to date.

[7] As for choice of L151, it is used as a surrogate for the luminosity of the radio lobes, motivated by the assumption that the core emission is attenuated by synchrotron self-absorption at 151 MHz.

[17] EQW4, EQW9, and EQW10 were solved simultaneously to eliminate R and T, yielding as a function of f and L151 which is presented in a scatter plot of the calibration sample according to Willott et al. (1999) where Q ≈ 3.8 x 1045 fL 6/7151 ergs−1.

Nature of radio lobes and jet power Researcher noted the northeast and southwest extensions in emission were detected in 327 MHz, according to Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) observations of Kanekar et al.

These smaller-scale features are buried deep within the unresolved JVLA radio core (i.e., an order of magnitude smaller than the resolution of the 2.5 GHz observations).

The earlier spectrum (1977 November 18) is from the RGO spectrograph on the 3.9 m Anglo Australian Telescope and this observation was used in the original determination of the quasar properties and redshift.

[8] The spectra from UVES, the Ultraviolet and Visual Echelle Spectrograph, on the VLT were retrieved from the ESO Spectral Data Products of the Phase 3 archive portal.

The light curve is shown, in which data reports the integrated photon flux in the 100 MeV–100 GeV energy range, and the corresponding apparent luminosity.

The source is detected in four bins with a significance, and the flaring activity in concentrated over a time span of 54 hr centered on MJD 57734.4.

[14] The luminosity of the flare is ~100 times the quiescent upper limit (August 4, 2008 – July 4, 2009) in Böck et al. (2013),[29] indicating extreme variability.

This findings suggest, PKS 0438-436 has only been detected once in γ-rays, likely an extreme manifestation of external Compton scattering in a relativistic jet for which the apparent luminosity is very sensitive to the geometry.