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Mysterious 'X-galaxy' reveals its secret in powerful telescope image
Tell Mulder and Scully their services are no longer needed.
Amanda Kooser
May 7, 2020 12:10 p.m. PT
It was a different kind of X-Files mystery. Astronomers had been puzzling over some galaxies that spew out X-shaped jets of radio waves from the black holes that lurk at their centers.
Galaxies with twin jets shooting off in opposite directions are common, but the cause of the elaborate X-jets was uncertain until the MeerKAT telescope in South Africa took a close look at one of these odd cosmic formations.
MeerKat's radio-wave observations of "X-galaxy" PKS 2014-55 have revealed a boomerang-like structure of "material falling back into the galaxy being deflected into different directions forming the other two arms of the X."
A team led by scientists from the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO), which operates MeerKAT, will publish their findings in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society journal.
More:
https://www.cnet.com/news/mysterious-x-galaxy-reveals-its-secret-in-powerful-telescope-image/
