Giant Radio Galaxies

 :: Giant Radio Galaxies ::

Indian researches working on Giant Radio Galaxies(GRG)inter university centre for astronomy and astrophysics Pune, India and Leiden University, Netherlands have found nearly 400 new GRGs. GRGs are large single structure in the universe.

Radio Galaxies:: The Universe has billions of galaxies and almost all have supermassive black holes at the centre. Some of these black holes are active and produce jets travelling almost at the speed of light. These jets are visible in radio light or at radio wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum. Such galaxies, which have active black holes shooting high speed jets, are called radio galaxies.

A radio galaxy is a strong source of electromagnetic radiation or radio waves.

They are extremely weak in radio luminosity making it difficult for even a sensitive radio telescope to detect them.

Gient Radio Galaxies: 

• When some of these radio galaxies grow to enormous sizes, bigger than 33 lakh light years across, they are called giant radio galaxies (GRGs).
• GRGs were discovered in 1974 and until 2016, only about 300 GRGs were known. The latest finding indicate that they are over 800. It is not clearly understood how some objects grow to such large scales and what is the fuel of their respective black holes.
• The length of jets indicates how powerful and active a black hole is as well as about the environment density of black holes.
• The study of GRGs gives important clues to unveiling how these massive black holes accrete mass and the efficiency with which they produce the magnificent jets.