Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy (ASTRON) | Leiden University | 2020 Feb 26
Scientists are asking for the public’s help to find the origin of hundreds of thousands of galaxies that have been discovered by the largest radio telescope ever built: LOFAR. Where do these mysterious objects that extend for thousands of light-years come from? A new citizen science project, LOFAR Radio Galaxy Zoo, gives anyone with a computer the exciting possibility to join the quest to find out where the black holes at the centre of these galaxies are located.
Astronomers use radio telescopes to make images of the radio sky, much like optical telescopes like the Hubble space telescope make maps of stars and galaxies. The difference is that the images made with a radio telescope show a sky that is very different from the sky that an optical telescope sees. In the radio sky, stars and galaxies are not directly seen but instead an abundance of complex structures linked to massive black holes at the centres of galaxies are detected. Most dust and gas surrounding a supermassive black hole gets consumed by the black hole, but part of the material will escape and gets ejected into deep space. This material forms large plumes of extremely hot gas, it is this gas that forms large structures that is observed by radio telescopes. ...
