Astronomers have made the most detailed map yet of a radio galaxy, which could lead to a better understanding of these strange phenomena.
The map of Centaurus A, a galaxy in the Centaurus constellation, covers a segment of sky 200 times the area of the full moon.
The team, led by Ilana Feain released the map at a meeting dedicated to the galaxy, The many faces of Centaurus A, held in Sydney last week.
"Only a small percentage of galaxies are of this kind. They're like the blue whales of space -- huge and rare," said Feain, from CSIRO's Australia Telescope National Facility.
It took 1,200 hours of observing time and 406 images, taken by the Australia Telescope Compact Array and Parkes radio telescopes, to create the detailed map. It took an additional 10,000 hours of computer time to process the image.
Centaurus A is 14 million light years away, extremely close for radio galaxies, which are typically found in the early universe, billions of light years distant. No one had attempted to map the galaxy to this degree of detail because of its huge size and close proximity.
Team member Tim Cornwell said it was a "real achievement in radio astronomy."
"It will have a big impact in terms of our understanding of what these objects look like and what the physical conditions are like in the galaxy," said Cornwell. "[The term] Rosetta stone is overused but it really is a key radio source."
The new image reveals the structure of the galaxy lit up by jets of radio-emitting particles blasted from a central supermassive black hole.
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