Disk Detective Talk

2MASX J02364264-42 seems to have a jet

  • pauldrye by pauldrye

    Link to the Disk Detective page: AWI00009jb

    The catalog number of the main starlike object is 2MASX J02364264-42, while the jet is listed as a galaxy in SIMBAD, which it certainly resembles. What interests me is that the Wise 3 and Wise 4 images do seem to show the two physically connected. I suppose it's to do with the resolution of the Wise camera and that they're merely incidentally smeared together. But I don't actually know anything about its resolution so I thought I'd make a note of it. Certainly the "galaxy" is oriented just right to point at the "star"

    A picture via Aladin, which also shows the galaxy/jet trailing off to the lower right of the central object:

    B-b-b-enny and the Jets!

    Posted

  • lrebull by lrebull scientist, translator, admin

    It does look like a jet, I agree, but we would need spectroscopy of both the point source and the smeared thing to find out really what they are, and if they are really related or just superimposed by chance.

    Posted

  • arvintan by arvintan

    Wait. The jet is emanating from the edge of the galaxy? Shouldn't it be oriented N-S?

    Posted

  • lrebull by lrebull scientist, translator, admin

    Well, the jet (or the galaxy) doesn't care which direction we humans define as N or S...

    Posted

  • lrebull by lrebull scientist, translator, admin

    FWIW, I get that the point source is the galaxy, not the jet. It's 2MASX J02364264-4226414 NED doesn't know much about this - few people have cared about this galaxy before, so no one knows if that is really a jet or not. http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/cgi-bin/objsearch?objname=2MASX+J02364264-4226414&extend=no&hconst=73&omegam=0.27&omegav=0.73&corr_z=1&out_csys=Equatorial&out_equinox=J2000.0&obj_sort=RA+or+Longitude&of=pre_text&zv_breaker=30000.0&list_limit=5&img_stamp=YES

    Posted

  • arvintan by arvintan

    By N-S, i meant coming from the poles of the galaxy or shooting off the nucleus. So, in that image, probably oriented 90 degrees anticlockwise from where the 'star' is now.!

    Edit: Just added an image to get my idea across.

    Posted

  • arvintan by arvintan

    OH. Now i get it. The 'star' is the galaxy, not the long feature.

    Edit: Added an image. This does look like the image.
    Polar jet

    Posted

  • lrebull by lrebull scientist, translator, admin

    I was digging for images too! Yes, the jets should be perpendicular to the disk around the nucleus of the galaxy, but that disk need not strictly be aligned with the rest of the galaxy.

    Moreover, when I look at the optical image, I see an elliptical almost flattened hamburger-shaped thing that is, indeed, perpendicular to the proposed jet.

    But I do have to emphasize that this is all speculation -- they could be at wildly different distances and just seen in the same spot in the sky and appear to be related. In order to know for sure if they are related, we need more data.

    Posted

  • Kevin by Kevin scientist, admin

    In fact, there is zero evidence for any alignment of black hole jets with the orientation of galaxy disks.

    This suggests that black holes snack not on general gas with the same angular momentum as the galaxy disk, but random bits of gas floating randomly in the center. Hence, their spins are not aligned.

    Posted