Radio Galaxy Zoo Talk

1001G

  • 1001G by 1001G

    IS IT JUST ONE CENTER GALAXY.
    IS IT 5 GALAXIES.

    Posted

  • DocR by DocR scientist

    Click on SDSS link below picture to see higher resolution in the optical. Five beautiful galaxies.

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  • JeanTate by JeanTate

    Here's the SDSS image, zoomed in a bit. The (strong!) radio source seems to coincide with the central galaxy (which doesn't have an SDSS spectrum, unfortunately):

    enter image description here

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  • 42jkb by 42jkb scientist, admin

    If we have a group or cluster, we usually observe radio galaxies at the centre. My understanding is that the interaction between all the members of the groups fuels the central galaxy's black hole, launching the radio source that we see here.

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  • JeanTate by JeanTate in response to 42jkb's comment.

    Cool! 😄

    How can anyone tell if this is bright, point-like, radio source vs a triple (double lobes + core) viewed 'end-on'? And vs any other possible explanation?

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  • 42jkb by 42jkb scientist, admin

    This is a hard question to answer and one we struggle with a lot of the time. As a general rule, if the host galaxy is an elliptical galaxy, chances are pretty high that it is a double lobe or triple pointing towards us and we only see down through the lobes.

    To tell if the radio source is compact and has "grown" large enough to expand through the galaxy and into those giant lobes, the spectral index will be different compared to a double lobed galaxy. Compact objects (depending on some other properties) can be known as Compact Steep Spectrum (CSS) and Gigahertz Peaked Spectrum (GPS) sources.

    Indeed there are a lot of things to take into consideration once we have a sample of radio galaxies!

    Posted