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Credit: SARAO
Two giant radio galaxies have been discovered with South Africa’s powerful MeerKAT telescope. These galaxies are amongst the largest single objects in the Universe and are thought to be quite rare.
The fact that MeerKAT detected two of these monsters in a relatively small patch of the sky suggests that giant radio galaxies may actually be much more common than previously thought. This gives astronomers further vital clues about how galaxies have changed and evolved throughout cosmic history.
The discovery has been published today, Monday, 18 January 2021 in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
Many galaxies have supermassive black holes residing in their midst. When large amounts of interstellar gas start to orbit and fall in towards the black hole, the black hole becomes ‘active’ and huge amounts of energy are released from this region of the galaxy.
Two giant radio galaxies have been discovered with South Africa s powerful MeerKAT telescope. These galaxies are thought to be amongst the largest single objects in the Universe. The discovery has been published today in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
Two giant radio galaxies have been discovered with South Africa's powerful MeerKAT telescope. These galaxies are thought to be amongst the largest sin..
Jan 18, 2021
Two giant radio galaxies have been discovered with South Africa’s powerful MeerKAT telescope. These galaxies are amongst the largest single objects in the universe and are thought to be quite rare.
The discovery has been published online in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
The detection of two of these monsters by MeerKat, in a relatively small patch of sky suggests that these scarce giant radio galaxies may actually be much more common than previously thought. This gives astronomers vital clues about how galaxies have changed and evolved throughout cosmic history.
Many galaxies have supermassive black holes residing in their midst. When large amounts of interstellar gas start to orbit and fall in towards the black hole, the black hole becomes ‘active’ and huge amounts of energy are released from this region of the galaxy.