Chandra Data Suggest Giant Collision Triggered Radio Phoenix

[bystander]

Abell 1033: Chandra Data Suggest Giant Collision Triggered "Radio Phoenix"
NASA | SAO | Chandra X-ray Observatory | 2015 Aug 26

Click to view full size image 1 or image 2

Credit: Optical: SDSS; Radio: NRAO/VLA;
X-ray: NASA/CXC/Univ of Hamburg/F. de Gasperin et al;

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Astronomers have found evidence for a faded electron cloud "coming back to life," much like the mythical phoenix, after two galaxy clusters collided. This "radio phoenix," so-called because the high-energy electrons radiate primarily at radio frequencies, is found in Abell 1033. The system is located about 1.6 billion light years from Earth.

By combining data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope in the Netherlands, NSF's Karl Jansky Very Large Array (VLA), and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), astronomers were able to recreate the scientific narrative behind this intriguing cosmic story of the radio phoenix.

Galaxy clusters are the largest structures in the Universe held together by gravity. They consist of hundreds or even thousands of individual galaxies, unseen dark matter, and huge reservoirs of hot gas that glow in X-ray light. Understanding how clusters grow is critical to tracking how the Universe itself evolves over time.

Astronomers think that the supermassive black hole close to the center of Abell 1033 erupted in the past. Streams of high-energy electrons filled a region hundreds of thousands of light years across and produced a cloud of bright radio emission. This cloud faded over a period of millions of years as the electrons lost energy and the cloud expanded.

The radio phoenix emerged when another cluster of galaxies slammed into the original cluster, sending shock waves through the system. These shock waves, similar to sonic booms produced by supersonic jets, passed through the dormant cloud of electrons. The shock waves compressed the cloud and re-energized the electrons, which caused the cloud to once again shine at radio frequencies. ...

Abell 1033: Birth of a Radio Phoenix - F. de Gasperin et al

• Monthly Notices of the RAS 448(3) 2197 (2015 Apr 11) DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stv129
  arXiv.org > astro-ph > arXiv:1501.00043 > 30 Dec 2014

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