Radio Galaxy Zoo Talk

infra red goes black http://radiotalk.galaxyzoo.org/#/subjects/ARG0002wpt

  • m_bright by m_bright

    Slide the IR fully right and where you'd expect a source there is blackness; not background. Are we looking end on at a black hole or is this just a lack of IR data?

    Posted

  • KWillett by KWillett scientist, admin, translator

    A black hole would never show up as "black" on an image (among other things, their physical size is many orders of magnitude too small to be seen at these distances). Since there's no obvious IR counterpart to this object; that probably means either:

    • the host galaxy for this black hole is extremely faint, far away, or dust-obscured
    • the radio blob is in fact a jet coming from one of the nearby bright sources
    • the radio blob is not emission associated with a galaxy's black hole.

    Posted

  • m_bright by m_bright

    You can tell I'm not a physics expert!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thanks for the very helpful and clear reply.

    Posted