Radio Galaxy Zoo Talk

Line of sight?

  • Chinabob by Chinabob

    Being a newbi would like to be educated. I marked this as a Radio source and then as a i.r. source. Am I correct in saying that this main object is in line of sight with a background Galaxy which has no Radio but has an I.R., if not correct what is the correct explanation?

    Thanks

    Posted

  • JeanTate by JeanTate in response to Chinabob's comment.

    I'm nowhere near an expert, not even a SCIENTIST, but I think this is a giant elliptical, perhaps with a quiescent AGN. The radio emission does not have a core/jet/lobe morphology, so perhaps it's just a pool of hot plasma, a remnant of past AGN activity? In any case, I think it's very likely physically associated with the IR galaxy.

    The IR source above (to the N, somewhat W) that seems 'attached' is actually a quite separate galaxy.

    Here's the SDSS DR10 image, zoomed in (scale is ~200% of the RGZ one):

    enter image description here

    The galaxy in the center - SDSS J145833.96+292452.1 - has a redshift of 0.354, and a petroRad_r (an indicator of how big it is) of 6.9" ... which means that it's HUGE! There are a lot of faint red galaxies about, which suggests that this one is indeed a cD ("giant elliptical") or BCG (brightest cluster galaxy) ...

    Posted

  • DocR by DocR scientist

    @JeanTate - well you may not be a paid scientist, but you certainly work like one. Nice explanation above. Hard to tell what the radio source morphology is. Could be some old emission as you say, but it also could be a very young source just starting to break out of its parent galaxy. Would really need much higher resolution.

    Posted