Active Galactic Nuclei -- Jets


Hubble Space Telescope image of a jet coming out of the galaxy M87
Source: Astronomy Picture of the Day Archive

Coming soon... a more detailed description of Jets

Jets were first observed in the radio and such galaxies were dubbed double-lobed radio galaxies. Moving to higher resolution showed that the lobes were generated by gets coming from deep in the galactic nucleus.

These are measured to be beams of relativistic particles. Some are measured to have a gamma-factor of 10. They come out in variable bunches and are independent relativistic shock waves. These are candidates for the accelerators of the highest energy cosmic rays.

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