Tuesday, April 26, 2011

APOD 4.2

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the highest resolution version available.
In this picture, radio telescopes from the Australian Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) are seen in front of a full moon and the radio image of Centauri A is superimposed in the background. Centaurus A is an active galaxy that is presumably the result of the collision of two galaxies. The debris are being consumed by a black hole. It is this black hole that produces the fast moving radio jets this long exposure photograph captures. What I had assumed were stars are actually the glow of other radio bright galaxies in the far distant future. How crazy is that!

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