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28th of January 2015
 
The giant radio lobes of Pictor A
by Emil Lenc (CAASTRO, SIfA, University of Sydney)
Celebrating the International Year of Light 2015 we present a stunning multi-wavelength image of Pictor A, the closest powerful Fanaroff-Riley class II radio source. The host galaxy appears as a non-descript point at the centre of the background optical image (grey: ESO DSS-2 R-band image). An X-ray jet (blue: Chandra X-ray image, A. Wilson, NASA, UMD) is seen emanating from the centre of the galaxy extending across 360,000 light years toward a brilliant hotspot. Two nearly circular lobes, normally reminiscent of a "dying" radio source, are seen at radio wavelengths (red: 6 cm ATCA radio continuum image by Emil Lenc, published in the Wilson et al. (2011) CABB paper) but the presence of hot spots (seen at the lobe extremities) suggest that the jet may have been recently re-activated.



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