MUSE spies accreting giant structure around a quasar

This Picture of the Week shows a huge cloud of gas around the distant quasar SDSS J102009.99+104002.7, taken by the Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) at the Paranal Observatory. Quasars are the luminous centres of active galaxies, which are kept active by material falling onto the central supermassive black hole. This quasar and its surrounding cloud are at a redshift larger than 3, meaning that they are seen as they were only about 2 billion years after the Big Bang.

The cloud of gas (or nebula) surrounding the quasar is known to astronomers as an Enormous Lyman-Alpha Nebula (ELAN). These types of nebula are massive structures of gas which formed in the early Universe, and they can help astronomers to learn how angular momentum — which explains the observed rotation of more recent galaxies — was created in the Universe. Thanks to the revolutionary MUSE instrument, it is now possible to observe these rare giant nebulae in greater detail than ever before.

This particular ELAN has a diameter of about a million light-years, and MUSE’s spectral imaging capabilities have allowed astronomers to measure the signature of inspiraling motions within the nebula — for the first time ever.

Link

Kredit:

ESO/Arrigoni Battaia et al.

O snímku

Id:potw1747a
Typ:Pozorování
Datum zveřejnění:20. listopadu 2017 6:00
Velikost:614 x 656 px

O objektu

Jméno:SDSS J102009.99+104002.7
Typ:Early Universe : Galaxy : Activity : AGN : Quasar
Vzdálenost:z=3.164 (rudý posuv)
Constellation:Leo
Kategorie:Quasars and Black Holes

Image Formats


Zvětšovatelný


Pozadí

1024x768
139,1 KB
1280x1024
190,0 KB
1600x1200
236,8 KB
1920x1200
256,1 KB
2048x1536
319,8 KB

Souřadnice

Position (RA):10 20 9.39
Position (Dec):10° 40' 3.25"
Field of view:1.02 x 1.09 arcminutes
Orientace:Sever je 0.0° levá od svislé osy

Barvy & filtry

PásmoVlnová délkaDalekohled
Optický
Ly-α
121 nmVery Large Telescope
MUSE
Optický
Continuum
540 nmVery Large Telescope
MUSE
Optický
Continuum
823 nmVery Large Telescope
MUSE