jet age question

• by WizardHowl

  clear #jet #pair but the centre seems #offset from the IR emission. The radio emission here is not compact and the lobes cover a much larger area than the galaxy in the IR: could this be a sign that the jets are older?

  Posted December 19, 2013 5:25 PM

• by akapinska scientist

  @WizardHowl: Jets of radio galaxies often extend beyond the host galaxy (host galaxy is the one you see in infrared and optical). They are not older than the host galaxy, they can't really be, but they are very powerful and travel with speeds close to the speed of light and in the direction outside the host galaxy, so in result they will extend very far away.

  This is an interesting source, I'll check how much the infrared and radio central peak are offset, they may as well be within the positional error. But if they are not, then higher resolution radio images will tell us what exactly happens. I wonder whether that could be one of very rare hybrid radio galaxies.. Need to follow up! (hint: because of the different appearance of the lobes)

  Anyway, I'll have a blog entry about how radio galaxies grow and how old their jets are soon so keep an eye on our blog for more information on how the radio galaxies grow! 😃

  Posted December 20, 2013 3:44 AM