Radio Galaxy Zoo Talk

What do you think?

  • AlissaBelle by AlissaBelle

    It took me a minute to decide on where to click for the infrared source. I was trying to decide on if both of these radio contours were from one source or two different ones, since I didn't see any infrared spot specifically for the top one by itself. The contour lines look like they might have different sources, but it would also somewhat make sense if they came from the same one. But the contour shapes seem like they have two different sources when I look at where the majority/ "saturation" (per se) of the shapes are, if that makes sense. What do you guys think?

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

    Welcome to RGZ, AlissaBelle!

    If you scroll down the Comments, you'll see one by HAndernach, a member of the RGZ Science Team, from 12 May, 2016:

    SDSS J085125.08+485935.6, z_sp=0.4891, size 2.0' 0r 690 kpc

    He's referring to a faint galaxy in this SDSS cutout:

    enter image description here

    It goes by the name SDSS J085125.08+485935.6; it has a redshift, determined spectroscopically, of 0.4891; here it is (in the center):

    enter image description here

    And it's the galaxy which has a super-massive black hole at its center, one that has caused these two lobes (as they're called) which you see in the radio contours. This type of radio source is called a #double (short for double lobe), and is somewhat unusual in the shape of the two lobes: they're not symmetrical (that's not too unusual), and they seem to have "kinks" in them (that's not very common).

    HAndernach estimates that the lobes are 2.0' (that's 2 arcminutes, a measure of angular distance) apart, which at a redshift of 0.4891, is 690 kiloparsecs (a parsec is a unit of distance, most often used in extragalactic astronomy; it's ~3.26 light-years).

    Hope this helps, and happy hunting! 😃

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

    Yes thank you, that is very helpful! I wasn't able to quite tell from the picture with the slider, I really appreciate this! 😃

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