AGN tagged posts

Observations Explore Radio Jet of a Powerful Quasar

Observations explore radio jet of a powerful quasar
VLBI image of PKS 2215+020 at 1.7 GHz. Credit: Universe (2024). DOI: 10.3390/universe10020097

European astronomers have conducted very long baseline interferometric (VLBI) observations of a radio jet structure in a powerful quasar known as PKS 2215+020. The collected VLBI data provide important insights into the properties of this jet, suggesting that PKS 2215+020 is a blazar. The findings were presented February 17 in the Universe journal.

Quasars, or quasi-stellar objects (QSOs) are active galactic nuclei (AGN) of very high luminosity, emitting electromagnetic radiation observable in radio, infrared, visible, ultraviolet and X-ray wavelengths.

They are among the brightest and most distant objects in the known universe, and serve as fundamental tools for numerous studies in as...

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Hubble Sights a Galaxy with ‘Forbidden’ Light

A spiral galaxy. It appears to be almost circular and seen face-on, with two prominent spiral arms winding out from a glowing core. It is centered in the frame as if a portrait. Most of the background is black, with only tiny, distant galaxies, but there are two large bright stars in the foreground, one blue and one red, directly above the galaxy.
This NASA Hubble Space Telescope image features a bright spiral galaxy known as MCG-01-24-014, which is located about 275 million light-years from Earth.
ESA/Hubble & NASA, C. Kilpatrick

This whirling image features a bright spiral galaxy known as MCG-01-24-014, which is located about 275 million light-years from Earth. In addition to being a well-defined spiral galaxy, MCG-01-24-014 has an extremely energetic core known as an active galactic nucleus (AGN) and is categorized as a Type-2 Seyfert galaxy.

Seyfert galaxies, along with quasars, host one of the most common subclasses of AGN...

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Mystery resolved: Blackhole Feeding and Feedback at the Center of an Active Galaxy

An international research team has recently observed the Circinus galaxy, which is one of the closest galaxies to the Milky Way, with high enough resolution to gain further insights into the gas flows to and from the black hole at its galactic nucleus.

An international research team led by Takuma Izumi, an assistant professor at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, has observed in high resolution (approximately 1 light year) the active galactic nucleus of the Circinus Galaxy — one of the closest major galaxies to the Milky Way. The observation was made possible by the Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (ALMA) astronomical observatory in Chile.

This breakthrough marks the world’s first quantitative measurement at this scale of gas flows and their structures o...

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Astronomers discover a ‘Changing-look’ Blazar

Sloan Digital Sky Survey archival image from March 2004 (top) and the image from the authors' observation campaign of the blazar, B2 1420+32, taken in January 2020 using ASAS-SN (bottom). The blazar brightness increased by a factor of 100.
Sloan Digital Sky Survey archival image from March 2004 (left) and the image from the authors’ observation campaign of the blazar, B2 1420+32, taken in January 2020 using ASAS-SN (right). The blazar brightness increased by a factor of 100.

Astronomers describe a ‘changing-look’ blazar — a powerful active galactic nucleus powered by supermassive blackhole at the center of a galaxy. A University of Oklahoma doctoral student, graduate and undergraduate research assistants, and an associate professor in the Homer L. Dodge Department of Physics and Astronomy in the University of Oklahoma College of Arts and Sciences are lead authors on a paper describing a “changing-look” blazar – a powerful active galactic nucleus powered by supermassive blackhole at the center of a galaxy...

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