Radio Galaxy Zoo Talk

An impossible source

  • DocR by DocR scientist

    First see link http://umn.edu/~larry/RGZ/ARG00025v9.jpg . the source at the bottom (sw) is a z=0.049 spiral with a radio source on the nucleus (at least). It is directly connected with a filament of unknown origin, terminating in what look like two galaxies that are part of a z=0.26 cluster. The cluster is a strong X-ray source. In the following image, red is SDSSr, green is Chandra X-rays, white contours for FIRST radio. enter image description here

    The above picture can barely show you what's going on. Full size version is at
    http://umn.edu/~larry/RGZ/ARG00025v9a.jpg

    Posted

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

    Optically, it's pretty obvious. Here's the field, centered on the elliptical with a spectrum (z=0.266, SDSS J120112.02+230550.5):

    enter image description here

    There's a highly elongated (for an elliptical) big ETG near the foreground star, SDSS J120116.76+230632.7; it too has a spectrum (z=0.264):

    enter image description here

    There are several other foreground late-type galaxies, with photometric redshifts of many values, but all consistent with them being foreground to the rich cluster (it's that rich cluster which is producing all the x-ray emission, for sure). These various foreground galaxies - or a subset of them - may form a galaxy group, but there's really no way to tell.

    Perhaps the coolest optical source is what SDSS thinks is several separate ones, some blue clouds; here they are, centered on SDSS J120105.37+230641.9:

    enter image description here

    In my experience, these are pretty rare in SDSS images; LSB (low surface brightness) very nearby irregular (we see only a tiny part of it)? An unusual, more distant, irregular? A foreground nebula (in our own galaxy)? ...

    Being such a rich cluster, it may not be surprising to find a gravitationally lensed arc (or?) somewhere here.

    So, perhaps the foreground highly-inclined spiral has some nuclear and/or starburst radio activity, and it just happens to align with an FRI fading one-sided jet from one of the cluster ETGs?

    Or perhaps the bright radio source is part of a double lobe, of the biggest (and most massive) ETG (the one near the bright star), and the other lobe is faint, and about the same distance away (NE side)? Some hint of this in NVSS ...

    Posted

  • zutopian by zutopian

    Presented in following GZ blog post:

    Remarkable Discoveries Underway

    We’ll be highlighting some of these curious discoveries in subsequent blogs, but here’s a recently found one that’s just “too good to be true.”

    http://blog.galaxyzoo.org/2014/06/08/remarkable-discoveries-underway-citizen-scientists-fire-up-radio-galaxy-zoo/

    Posted

  • zutopian by zutopian

    Here is a paper (non-mainstream astronomy) about another impossible case.:

    The double radio source 3C343.1: A galaxy-QSO pair with very different redshifts

    The strong radio source 3C343.1 consists of a galaxy and a QSO separated by no more than about 0.25 arcsec. The chance of this being an accidental superposition is conservatively 10^-8. The z=0.344 galaxy is connected to the z=0.750 QSO by a radio bridge. The numerical relation between the two redshifts is that predicted from previous associations. This pair is an extreme example of many similar physical associations of QSOs and galaxies with very different redshifts.

    H. Arp, E.M. Burbidge, G. Burbidge
    (Submitted on 2 Jan 2004)
    http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0401007v1

    Posted

  • zutopian by zutopian

    Here is a discussion about another "impossible source".:

    Two quasars, so close, so far
    https://radiotalk.galaxyzoo.org/#/boards/BRG0000006/discussions/DRG0000p8h

    Posted

  • zutopian by zutopian

    Here is another apparently impossible source.:

    https://radiotalk.galaxyzoo.org/#/subjects/ARG00002ea

    Posted