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Old 22-06-2011, 02:52 PM
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madbadgalaxyman (Robert)
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Join Date: Mar 2011
Location: Brisbane
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Suzy, that's an interesting question....... as to whether the blue material in the GALEX image of NGC 5128 corresponds to the very long jet of ionized gas that emanates from the supermassive black hole at the centre of this galaxy. Remember, blue in these GALEX Satellite images codes for far-ultraviolet light, which is totally blocked by the earth's atmosphere. Mostly, this wavelength of light tends to come from hot & young & massive stars, but I honestly don't know whether or not the plasma in jets like that of Cen A can produce far-ultraviolet light.

The jet is definitely visible in X-rays & in radio observations, and also it is probably faintly visible in the optical regime.

Also, it has been known for some time (a few decades) that some small blue knots of recently formed stars are associated with the Radio/Xray -luminous Plasma Jet.

The question of why stars should form at all in unusual environments such as radio jets and tidal tails, is in itself an interesting one......

In Sydney in 2009, there was a "really totally red hot" conference devoted solely to NGC 5128, and this presented gigantic numbers of images of NGC 5128 at every conceivable wavelength and image scale.

Fortunately for us, there are publicly accessible .pdf files of all the presentations that were given:
//www.atnf.csiro.au/research/cena/programme

and one of the papers that was presented at this conference overlays the GALEX image with the radio image of the jet that originates in the central black hole (or: the Massive Dark Object..... if the object is not a black hole).

I just downloaded 14 (!!) of the most relevant papers from this conference, so I should be able to answer your question, "when I get a Round Tuit"
(I do suffer from data overload...there are ~2000 unanalyzed scientific papers on my disk drive)

Certainly, the pdf files of the conference presentations represent a remarkable resource for anyone interested in the structure and appearance of N5128 at many different wavelengths.
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