Legacy Astronomical Images > Active Galactic Nuclei Series > Radio Galaxies Unit

Description

Radio galaxies emit radio waves from their central core. The energy to produce these emissions is generated by a supermassive black hole, which sends out jets of high-energy particles many millions of light-years into intergalactic space. These particles emit radio waves, which we can use to trace the jets and determine how much energy they contain. Many of the images on these pages are Double Radio Sources Associated with Galactic Nuclei (DRAGNs), which are large-scale double radio sources produced by jets that are launched by processes in AGN.

Collection Items

Fornax A
Description: More than 100 million years ago, the giant elliptical galaxy, NGC1316 (center of the image), began devouring its small northern neighbor. The complex radio emission, associated with this encounter (called Fornax A, shown in orange) was imaged using…

A Wide Angle Tail Radio Galaxy in the COSMOS Field
Description: Color composite image showing a wide angle tail radio galaxy, CWAT-01, and its environment discovered in the COSMOS field. The 20 cm continuum emission from its radio lobes (which is mainly due to synchrotron radiation of relativistic electrons) was…

Radio Jets of 3C449
Description: VLA radio image of dual radio jets emerging from opposite sides of the nucleus of a large elliptical galaxy whose optical dimensions are about 1/10th the radio features. The redshift of the galaxy is 5400 km/s; the distance is 180 million light-years…

Head-Tail Galaxy IC 708
Description: An unusual head-tail galaxy (member of a binary pair) in the Abell 1314 cluster of galaxies. This map shows twin jets of radio emission bending behind the active galaxy IC 708 as it moves through the gaseous atmosphere of A1314. The optical galaxy IC…

Wide Angle Radio Galaxy 4C 47.51
Description: Archival VLA image of a wide angle tail radio galaxy. The tails extend to over three million light years away from the galaxy nucleus. The radio source is associated with a supergiant galaxy at the center of a dense cluster of galaxies.

Radio Galaxy 3C288
Description: This is an unusual radio galaxy. It has double lobes with plume-like extensions. Astronomers believe that the jets are fueled by material accreting onto a super-massive black hole at the center of the host galaxy (not shown in this image). The high…

Radio Galaxy NGC 315
Description: This image shows a the optical and radio morphology of the jet emitted from the core of NGC315, a giant radio galaxy near the constellation Andromeda. In this image, red colors depict radio emission measured with the VLA, and blue colors depict the…

Radio Galaxy 3C83.1B
Description: This is a false-color image of the wide-angle radio galaxy 3C83.1B, associated with the elliptical galaxy NGC1265 in the Perseus Cluster of galaxies. Blue colors show the distribution of stars, made from an image from the Digitized Second Palomar Sky…

Cygnus A
Description: The radio source Cygnus A is produced in a galaxy some 600 million light-years away. The radio waves are coming from electrons propelled at nearly the speed of light through a long, thin "jet" at the core of the galaxy and deposited in giant "radio…

Cygnus A
Description: False color image of the radio jet and lobes in the hyperluminous radio galaxy Cygnus A. Red shows regions with the brightest radio emission, while blue shows regions of fainter emission.

Cygnus A (B&W)
Description: The radio source Cygnus A is produced in a galaxy some 600 million light-years away. The radio waves are coming from electrons propelled at nearly the speed of light through a long, thin "jet" at the core of the galaxy and deposited in giant "radio…

M87 Jet at 2 cm
Description: VLA A-array observations. Resolution 0.1".

M87 at 20 cm

The Relic in Abell 85
Description: This is a spectral index map of the cluster of galaxies Abell 85. Within this cluster are several radio galaxies, some of which are young, and one of which is considered a relic (the largest red structure). This radio relic contains old radio plasma…

The VLA at Coma
Description: The heart of Abell 1656, the Coma Cluster, is highlighted by spectacular radio emission from NGC4874 and NGC4869. Optical data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey shows numerous galaxies whose light is dominated by old stars and appears reddish-yellow…

3C 130
Description: VLA 20 cm map of radio source 3C 130, an elliptical galaxy in a distant cluster emitting two oppositely-directed narrow "jets" of radio emission from a small bright source in its nucleus. Such "twin-jet" sources are thought to arise when violent…

Inner Radio Lobes of Centaurus A (NGC 5128)
Description: Centaurus A, at a distance of 5 Mpc, is the closest powerful radio galaxy. The general radio jet and the knots within the jet line up remarkably well with the X-ray jet recently found from Einstein Observatory observations. The structure shown here…

Inner Radio Lobes of Centaurus A (NGC 5128)
Description: Centaurus A, at a distance of 5 Mpc, is the closest powerful radio galaxy. The general radio jet and the knots within the jet line up remarkably well with the X-ray jet recently found from Einstein Observatory observations. The structure shown here…

Radio Jets U-shaped 3C83.1 (NGC 1265)
Description: False color image of the radio jets from the radio galaxy NGC 1265. Red shows regions of intense radio emission, while blue shows regions of fainter emission. The center of the radio galaxy is at the location of the red circle at the bottom center of…

3C75 - Central Galaxy in Abell 400
Description: 20 cm pseudo-color VLA image of the radio source 3C 75 in the cluster of galaxies Abell 400. Red shows regions of intense radio emission, while blue shows regions of fainter emission The image consists of two twin jet radio sources associated with…

3C75 - Twin Wide Angle Tail Radio Galaxy
Description: 6 cm VLA image of the interacting twin jet source associated with the central radio galaxy in Abell 400. The two red dots (bottom center of image) each are associated with one of the twin nuclei of the central galaxy in cluster of galaxies Abell 400.…

Fornax A Polarization
Description: Fornax A, radio galaxy associated with the bright elliptical galaxy NGC1316. In this hue-intensity image the brightness corresponds to the intensity of the lobes while the highly polarized structure is saturated white and regions of increasing…

Radio Galaxy 3C31
Description: This image shows the radio morphology of the radio galaxy 3C31 (NGC 383), the dominant galaxy of a prominent chain of galaxies. This system is a powerful radio source, with conical inner jets developing into distorted plumes, which stretch to a…

Radio Galaxy 3C353
Description: This radio galaxy is associate with the central dominant elliptical galaxy of a nearby cluster. The overall linear size of the radio structure is 120 kpc. It is a complex double-lobed radio source, with highly filamentary lobes, and a narrow jet and…

M87 Radio Halo
Description: This is a VLA image of the galaxy M87, showing details of the large-scale, radio-emitting "bubbles" believed to be powered by the black hole at the galaxy's center. The galaxy's center (and the black hole) lie deep within the bright, reddish region…

NGC 326
Description: Images from the Very Large Array (VLA) radio telescope have uncovered compelling evidence that supermassive black holes at the hearts of large galaxies collide when their host galaxies merge. The observers believe they have found the smoking gun for…

Radio Galaxy 3C296 Radio/Optical Superposition
Description: This is a false-color image of the radio galaxy 3C296, associated with the elliptical galaxy NGC5532. Blue colors show the distribution of stars, made from an image from the Digitized Second Palomar Sky Survey, and red colors show the radio radiation…

Radio/Optical Overlay M84 (3C272.1)
Description: This image shows a double-plumed radio galaxy located in the core of the Virgo Cluster, some 17 Mpc away. The host galaxy is M84, an elliptical galaxy with a dusty nucleus. In this radio/optical overlay, blue-green colors show the distribution of…

VLA & VLBA Jet Image NGC 315
Description: Here is a splendid example of the difference in observing capabilities of the VLBA and the VLA. This is the jet emitted from the core of NGC315, a giant radio galaxy near the constellation Andromeda. The larger image is from VLA (B configuration)…

M87 Montage
Description: Radio images of the galaxy M87 at different scales show, right, the entire structure of M87; top left, giant, bubble-like structures where radio emission is thought to be powered by the jets from the galaxy's central black hole; middle left, the jets…

M87 Radio Montage

Jet & Counterjet NGC 4261
Description: NGC 4261 is an elliptical galaxy containing a 300-parsec scale nuclear disk of gas and dust imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope, around a central supermassive black hole. This VLBA image shows the radio jet on the right, which is pointed slightly…

Compact Symmetric Source 4C31.04
Description: Compact Symmetric Sources (CSOs) are small sources with lobe emission on both sides of an active core. They are very similar to classical extended radio sources but have a much smaller linear size, less than 1 kiloparsec. The study of these objects…

Compact Symmetric Object 1946+708
Description: This image shows the Compact Symmetric Object 1946+708 (TXS 1946+708), taken with the VLBA in March, 1995. Compact Symmetric Sources (CSOs) are small sources with lobe emission on both sides of an active core. They are very similar to classical…

Spinning the Wheel on NGC1052
Description: This VLBA image shows the twin-jet system in the active galaxy NGC1052 at four different wavelengths. The brightness increases from red over yellow to white. By spinning the dial on the wavelength, the angular resolution of the image changes from…

The Inner Jet of the Radio Galaxy M87
Description: The Inner Jet of the Radio Galaxy M87 located in the Virgo cluster at a distance of only 16 Megaparsec (52 million light years). The angular resolution of this false-color radio image made by the NRAO Very Long Baseline Array at 2 cm is fifty times…

Radio Jet Collimation Region of M87
Description: The elliptical galaxy M87 hosts a radio galaxy whose main jet is especially well-studied on arcsec and milliarcsec scales. Prior Global VLBI observations at 43 GHz offered sub-milliarcsec resolution and indicated that the initial jet collimation…

Faint Radio Sources in the NOAO Bootes Field
Description: As a step toward investigating the properties of faint extragalactic sources on light-year scales, the VLBA was used at 5.0 GHz to survey 76 sources in the NOAO Bootes field. The image shows the geometry for the VLBA survey, the largest of its kind…

VLA/VLBA Observations of a Radio Galaxy at z=3.1
Description: The radio galaxy B3 J2330+3927 lies so far away from us (more than 11000 million light years), that when its light was emitted neither our dear Earth, nor our Sun existed; even our galaxy, the Milky Way, was not entirely formed. The central panel…

0402+379
Description: VLBA 2 cm image of the radio galaxy 0402+379, which hosts two active supermassive black holes at its center. The location of each supermassive black hole is indicated on the image by an artist's conception of an accretion disk with narrow twin jets.…

The Jet Base of M87
Description: M87, an elliptical galaxy located at the center of the Virgo galaxy cluster, has a jet that is well-studied on arcsec and milli-arcsec scales. Because the jet is bright, the black hole is very massive, and M87 is relatively nearby, this is the best…

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