NRAO: National Radio Astronomy Observatory

About this Image

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 as imaged by the VLA, measured at a wavelength of 20cm. Several other galaxies are seen in this image, but are not directly related to the radio source. The radio emission is from relativistic streams of high energy particles generated by the radio source in the center of the radio galaxy. Astronomers believe that the jets are fueled by material accreting onto a super-massive black hole. The high energy particles are confined to remarkably well collimated jets, and are shot into extragalactic space at speeds approaching the speed of light, where they eventually balloon into massive radio lobes. The plumes in 3C296 measure 150 kpc or 480,000 light years edge-to-edge diameter (for a Hubble constant of 100 km/s/Mpc).

Investigator(s):  J.P. Leahy & R.A. Perley. Optical/Radio superposition by Alan Bridle

Alternate Resolutions

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This image is available in the following downloadable versions:

• 440 x 520 color JPEG

If you would like to obtain a higher resolution version of this image, please contact Pat Smiley.

For More Information

• Read the Journal article
• Visit related website http://www.cv.nrao.edu/~abridle/3c296digss.htm
• Up one level for more info on Radio_Galaxies
• For unfamiliar terms, visit the NRAO Radio Astronomy Glossary

Technical Data

Telescope	VLA
Date of Observation	1987-12-02
Type of Observation	Continuum Observations
Band	L
Wavelength	20 cm
Frequency	1.4 GHz
Center of Image	RA: 14:16:53.20, Dec: 10:48:11.00 (J2000)
Field of View	0.1333 x 0.1333 degrees
Technical Caption	FR I (plumed) radio galaxy at z=0.0237. VLA 1.45 GHz image at 4.9 arcsec resolution.



Astronomical database entries for 3C296
• Query NED for images of 3C296
• Query SIMBAD for more 3C296 data

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