Observatoire des droits humains (anglais seulement)

'Dancing ghosts': a new, deeper scan of the sky throws up surprises for astronomers

(Version anglaise seulement)

par Ray Norris, Professor, School of Science, Western Sydney University

Scanning through data fresh off the telescope, we saw two ghosts dancing deep in the cosmos. We had never seen anything like it before, and we had no idea what they were.

Several weeks later, we had figured out we were seeing two radio galaxies, about a billion light years away. In the centre of each one is a supermassive black hole, squirting out jets of electrons that are bent into grotesque shapes by an intergalactic wind.

But where does the intergalactic wind come from? Why is it so tangled? And what is causing the streams of radio emission? We still don’t understand…

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