Radio Galaxy Zoo Talk

Identification

  • throughgeorgeseyes by throughgeorgeseyes

    Does any one know what is in the center of this image? Am I looking at a super nova?

    Posted

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

    Very likely there's a distant galaxy 'behind' the bright star*; the star is likely just a few dozen to perhaps a hundred or so light-years away, but the galaxy billions of light years distant.

    In short, it's a chance alignment. And no, it's not a supernova ... a supernova in the distant galaxy would be too faint to see in SDSS or WISE images, and a supernova in our own galaxy would be all over the news (as well as being, very likely, much much brighter than this star).

    *alternatively, what's 'behind' the star is just a radio lobe, with the host galaxy being the circular radio off to the left; if so, it's invisible in both WISE and SDSS, so is likely very, very distant.

    Posted

  • ivywong by ivywong scientist, admin

    Spot on @JeanTate !

    Posted

  • DZM by DZM Zooniverse Team

    What are the odds on something like this? Is this a rarity? It's pretty interesting, might be good for #dailyzoo?

    Posted

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

    Thanks Ivy.

    DZM: I think ~a dozen or so fields like this have been commented on, in various parts of RGZ Talk. Each is different, of course, but in general chance alignments are rather more common than you might at first think. And our brains fool us too easily; we often see a pattern where none in fact exists (better to fear a shape which turns out to be just a chance alignment of shadows than not, and so not see the tiger ready to pounce!)

    Daily Zoo? It's pretty striking, visually, so why not?

    Posted

  • JeanTate by JeanTate

    ARG0001heu is also quite striking, visually. Being so radio-bright, it's been investigated, and the host is a z_sp 1.779 QSO (according to NED):

    enter image description here

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  • DZM by DZM Zooniverse Team in response to JeanTate's comment.

    Thanks, Jean! Stuff doesn't have to be scientifically interesting to make Daily Zoo... we like stuff that's just visually interesting sometimes, too. 😃

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

    1001G recently posted something that's visually very striking, ARG0003cnb GREEN STAR? & GALAXY:

    enter image description here

    It's doubly interesting because the nucleus is a nice and bright FIRST source:

    enter image description here

    And the green 'star' is a cosmic ray artifact! 😃

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  • JeanTate by JeanTate

    And here's a really terrific one! 😄 In ARG0000a3k, discovered by the incomparable Dolorous Edd:

    enter image description here
    enter image description here

    Discussion in the Green galaxies associated with RGZ sources thread.

    The image in this post was created from sources, and using methods, described in this RGZ Talk post. The object at the center of the image is SDSS J130854.52+562155.6.

    Posted