Rebound ripples

• by Gtar

  What creates the crossing waves in the radio contours as if they were rebounding off a container?

  Posted March 30, 2015 8:51 PM

• by ivywong scientist, admin

  What do you mean specifically by "crossing waves"?

  The contour levels provide an indication of intensity. The little smaller contours in the middle show the peak intensity regions ....

  Posted March 31, 2015 8:54 AM

• by JeanTate in response to Gtar's comment.

  Welcome to RGZ, Gtar! 😃

  This particular set of radio sources is called a #triple. It's the 'core' (source in the center, coincident with the bright IR WISE source) and two lobes; the N one is detached, and the S one has a 'hotspot' close to the core, with a tail extending towards the SW (in these images N is always up, and W to the right, the opposite of what's usual in maps!).

  Anna Kapinska, one of the RGZ Science Team members, wrote two very good blog posts on this, The Curious Lives Of Radio Galaxies – Part One and The Curious Lives of Radio Galaxies – Part Two, and there are several other good RGZ blog posts; well worth the time to read.

  Hope this helps! Happy hunting 😄

  Posted March 31, 2015 3:31 PM

• by gavinrider

  I think Gtar is referring to the residual noise in the radio image. This is the result of the Fourier transformation processing of added signals from multiple radio antennas in an array, I believe, which is necessary to generate the final intensity map. (but I'm not a radio astronomer!)

  Posted March 31, 2015 4:18 PM

• by ivywong scientist, admin

  Thanks heaps @JeanTate & @gavinrider for helping out! You are both spot on!

  cheers,
  Ivy

  Posted April 1, 2015 7:17 AM