CSIRO astronomers reveal a ‘blue whale of space’

CSIRO astronomers have revealed the hidden face of an enormous galaxy called Centaurus A, which emits a radio glow covering an area 200 times bigger than the full Moon.

The galaxy’s radio waves have been painstakingly transformed into a highly detailed image, which is being unveiled to the public for the first time.

Centaurus A lies 14 million light-years away, in the southern constellation Centaurus, and houses a monster black hole 50 million times the mass of the Sun.

The galaxy’s black hole generates jets of radio-emitting particles that billow millions of light years out into space.

The spectacular sight is invisible to the naked eye.

“If your eyes could see radio waves you would look up in the sky and see the radio glow from this galaxy covering an area 200 times bigger than the full Moon,” said the lead scientist for the project, Dr Ilana Feain of CSIRO’s Australia Telescope National Facility (ATNF).

spacefellowship.com...

Check the link for the image and full report.

This just makes me want to invent glasses that see radio waves..
Can you imagine looking up into the night sky and seeing this massive 'whale' lumbering across the heavens?

Just the composite image alone is pretty impressive.. It would surely be an amazing sight if you were out in the middle of nowhere with no cloud cover, no light pollution.. and a few beers wonderful way to fall asleep..

reply to post by Extralien

It doesn't really look much like a whale but you can see it with your own eyes and it's a lot bigger (to our eyes) than what they're talking about.

www.astropix.com...

[edit on 7/11/2009 by Phage]

reply to post by Phage


So if the image you link to is what they are talking about, why do they state that it is invisible to the naked eye and if you could see it it would be 200 times bigger than our visible moon?

The image you link to may very well be the galaxy in question, but why does the url say 'milky way'???

I have never seen the image you have linked in the night sky appear 200 times bigger than the moon..

Can you explain this?

reply to post by Extralien

The image I linked is the Milky Way.

My point was just that we can see something just as amazing with the naked eye. Something much larger (from our point of view) than Centaurus (which doesn't look like a whale, btw).


[edit on 7/11/2009 by Phage]

Blue whale is referring to this comment at the OP's link

“Only a small percentage of galaxies are of this kind. They’re like the blue whales of space – huge and rare.”

I got a forbidden message when trying Phage's link.

reply to post by liveandlearn

Edited the link to point to the original page.

reply to post by Phage


The mention of a whale is just to emphasise the sheer size of the radio wave emitting from the Galaxy they mention and not that it looks like a whale.

Being able to see our own Galaxy at night is pretty good, I agree, but would pale into nothing if we could physically see this radio 'cloud'.

The image they composed is quite something and, if the positioning is correct, would still leave our Galaxy in view.

The point of this thread was to make others aware of this new image that these people have created through the data they have uncovered..

The radio waves from this Galaxy are always there, but until now, we have never been able to see it. And please note.. we are NOT looking at Centaurus, but rather the radio waves emitted from it and the black hole at its core.

reply to post by Extralien

I understand and agree completely. I was just pointing out that there is some pretty terrific stuff that we can see. In reading my original post I see I did a very poor job of getting that thought across.