Koribalski et al. present the discovery of a large-scale, limb-brightened outflow, extending at least 30 kpc above and below the star-forming disk of the nearby edge-on spiral galaxy ESO 130-G012. Partially obscured by Galactic foreground stars and dust, this optically unremarkable, low-mass galaxy reveals one of the largest known hourglass-shaped outflows from the full extent of its bright stellar disk. The outflow was discovered in 944 MHz radio continuum images from the ASKAP EMU survey. The large-scale, hourglass-shaped outflow of ESO 130-G012 appears to be hollow and originates from the star-forming disk, expanding into the halo with speeds close to the escape velocity before likely returning to the disk. Given the galaxy’s modest star formation rate, the height of the outflow is surprising and unusual, likely made possible by the galaxy’s relatively low gravitational potential. Follow-up observations are expected to detect hot gas inside the bipolar outflow cones and magnetic fields along the X-shaped outflow wings. The figure above shows the ASKAP 944 MHz radio continuum image of the outflow from ESO 130-G012. The edge-on disk of the optical galaxy spans 2 arcminutes, oriented from lower-left to top-right, at the centre of image. At the galaxy distance of 16.9 mega-parssecs, the detected outflow height of at least 6 arcminutes corresponds to ∼30 kilo-parsecs. The ASKAP resolution of 15 arcseconds is indicated in the bottom left corner.
