Radio signiture but no intense amount of infared action
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by
WAZZY
What causes this type of occurrence?
Posted
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by
JeanTate
in response to WAZZY's comment.
It is often because the host (the galaxy which has the super-massive black hole (SMBH) in its nucleus) is extremely far away, so its IR emission is weak (or faint), by the time it gets to us. That the radio source is obvious points to the energy in the radio being proportionately much greater than is normally seen in galaxies, compared with the IR. This is a common feature of the jets - and lobes - which the SMBH somehow produces (many details are poorly understood, if at all).
Much less often, but you will see some examples here in RGZ, for some reason the host's IR is unusually weak, so it appears faint to us, even though it's not that far away (which could still be billions of light-years, astronomers' "not that far" is still an incredible distance).
Hope this helps, and happy hunting! 😃
Posted