Astronomers have found a new giant galaxy in all sky survey with the help of International LOFAR Telescope (ILT). This galaxy is the member of very powerful/very old Giant Radio Galaxies (GRGs).Overlay of the new GRG (blue-white colors) on an optical image from the Digitized Sky survey. The inset shows the central galaxy triplet. The image is about 2 Mpc across. (Credit: Sloan Digital Sky Survey)
George Heald from ASTRON in the Netherlands and the team members found this previously hidden galaxy utilizing LOFAR’s first all-sky imaging survey, the Multi-frequency Snapshot Sky Survey (MSSS). They found radio emission from the galaxy that was ejected from one member of an interacting galaxy triplet system tens to hundreds of millions of years ago.
The parent galaxy system of the newly found galaxy is located about 750 million light years away and the center of the new GRG is associated with one member of a galaxy triplet known as UGC 09555.
LOFAR’s MSSS survey is taking images of the entire northern sky at very low radio frequencies, between 30–160 MHz (wavelengths from 2–10m).
The MSSS is still working and is believed to give information about many new objects and sources of radio emission.