The startling radio emission from the galaxy cluster in the constellation may come from the 1.66 million light-years long radio tail of the main center galaxy. The team that made this discovery also found evidence of a galaxy merger in the Abell 1213 cluster, located in the Ursa Major constellation and about 647 million light-years from Earth. These findings are the result of astronomers’ investigation of anomalous radio emission from Abell 1213. In 2009, observations by the Very Large Array (VLA) of 28 radio antennas located in the New Mexico plains revealed the presence of diffuse extended emission. . from the set.

It was originally thought to be a radio halo, a large-scale source of diffuse radio emission, at the center of a few elite galaxy clusters that form when orbiting electrons approach the speed of light. and begins to emit a type of radiation called “synchrotron radiation.” However, this radio emission has certain qualities that distinguish it from other radio halos; for example, being off-center with respect to the gas and dust between the galaxies in the cluster, called the “intra-cluster medium” and making it a thing. an enigma. to astronomers.

A team of astronomers led by Walter Bosch of the University of La Laguna, Spain, used a wide variety of data from both space and ground-based telescopes to study the dynamics of Abell 1213. This is from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). ) and X-ray data from the XMM-Newton Space Telescope that reveal the structure and dynamics of the cluster’s intracluster environment.

Comparing this with data recently collected by the Low-Frequency Array (LOFAR), now the world’s largest radio telescope, the scientists found that the radio emission was about 1.66 million light-years across and did not match the X-ray emission. Emissions from this area

This indicates that rather than a radio halo, the source of this emission is actually the tail of 4C29.41, the central radio galaxy in the cluster that dominates the cluster along with the other two radio galaxies. The team hypothesizes that this tail is coiled by interactions with Abell 1213’s intra-cluster environment, the superheated plasma radiating throughout the intergalactic cluster.

The team also found traces of scattered fragments of radio emission at the heart of Abell 1213. Astronomers suggest that this radio emission from this galaxy cluster may be a radio remnant, the result of a past galactic merger that produced a shock wave that accelerated production. of electrons. almost a “radio copy” of the history of the region.

“The spectral index map of the radio source is consistent with a remnant interpretation corresponding to substructures detected by optical analysis, possibly due to a coupling in the NE or NW direction,” the astronomers wrote. “The fragmented scattered radio emissions at the center of the cluster may be the surface luminosity peaks of a weak central radio halo.”

In addition to these radio discoveries, astronomers have discovered other exciting information about Abell 1213. The brightest galaxy near the center of the cluster, called the Brightest Galaxy (BCG), has a high velocity, suggesting that Abell 1213 is indeed a fabrication. consists of several galaxy groups and its core has a complex infrastructure.

The team also found that the star-forming galaxies, which have a bright blue color from hot young stars, are not confined to the edges of Abell 1213. This could mean that the cluster was formed by the merging of several separate galaxy groups.