The enigma of 10214+4724

Publication Import ID BibCode: 1991StarB...8...25L

One of the controversial questions of recent years
has been whether 'ultraluminous' IRAS galaxies, i.e.
objects with far-infrared luminosities of the order
LFIR ~ 1012-£©> are powered by hidden quasars, or
by bursts of star formation. This argument has now
hit a crisis point, as we have discovered a 'hyperlumi-
nous' object at the unprecedented redshift of z = 2.286;
territory previously reserved for quasars and a hand-
ful of radio galaxies. The object, IRAS Faint Source
10214+4724, was discovered during a redshift survey
of sources from the IRAS Faint Source Catalog under-
taken by astronomers from QMW, Cambridge, Caltech,
Oxford, and Durham (the 'QCCOD' survey). It is de-
scribed in more detail in Rowan-Robinson et al (1991,
Nature, 351, 719).