A Multi-Wavelength View of Radio Galaxy Hercules A
Some two billion light-years away, the yellowish elliptical galaxy in the center of the image appears quite ordinary as seen by Hubble in visible wavelengths of light.
The galaxy is roughly 1,000 times more massive than our Milky Way and harbors a 2.5-billion-solar-mass central black hole that is 1,000 times more massive than the black hole in the Milky Way. But the innocuous-looking galaxy, also known as 3C 348, has long been known as the brightest radio-emitting object in the constellation Hercules. Emitting nearly a billion times more power in radio wavelengths than our Sun, the galaxy is one of the brightest extragalactic radio sources in the entire sky.
The VLA radio data reveal enormous, optically invisible jets that, at one-and-a-half million light-years long, dwarf the visible galaxy from which they emerge. The jets are very-high-energy plasma beams, subatomic particles and magnetic fields shot at nearly the speed of light from the vicinity of the black hole. The outer portions of both jets show unusual ring-like structures suggesting a history of multiple outbursts from the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy.
The innermost parts of the jets are not visible because of the extreme velocity of the material; relativistic effects confine all of the light to a narrow cone aligned to the jets, so the light does not reach us. Far from the galaxy, the jets become unstable and break up into rings and wisps.
The entire radio source is surrounded by a very hot, X-ray-emitting cloud of gas, not seen in this optical-radio composite.
Hubble's view of the field also shows a companion elliptical galaxy very close to the center of the optical-radio source, which may be merging with the central galaxy. Several other elliptical and spiral galaxies that are visible in the Hubble data may be members of a cluster of galaxies. Hercules A is by far the brightest and most massive galaxy in the cluster.
Credit: NASA, ESA, S. Baum and C. O'Dea (RIT), R. Perley and W. Cotton (NRAO/AUI/NSF), and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
For images and more information about Hercules A, visit:
http://hubblesite.org/news/2012/47
http://www.nasa.gov/hubble
http://heritage.stsci.edu/2012/47
http://www.nrao.edu/pr/2012/herca/
For more information, contact:
Ray Villard
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.
410-338-4514
villard@stsci.edu
John Stoke
National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Charlottesville, Va.
434-244-6896
jstoke@nrao.edu
Dave Finley
National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Socorro, N.M.
575-835-7302
dfinley@nrao.edu
The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation, operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc. The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., manages the
telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Md., conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., in Washington.
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