Chennai: Astronomers have found a cosmic phenomenon with a striking resemblance to a jellyfish.
A radio telescope located in outback Western Australia has found the cosmic phenomenon of a cluster for 12 hours at five radio frequencies between 87.5 and 215.5 megahertz. The Australian-Italian team used the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) telescope to observe a cluster of galaxies known as Abell 2877.
The discovery of the mnew cosmic phenomenon has been published in The Astrophysical Journal.
According to lead author and PhD candidate Torrance Hodgson, from the Curtin University node of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) in Perth, “We looked at the data, and as we turned down the frequency, we saw a ghostly jellyfish-like structure begin to emerge.”
“This radio jellyfish holds a world record of sorts. Whilst it’s bright at regular FM radio frequencies, at 200 MHz the emission all but disappears.
No other extragalactic emission like this has been observed to disappear anywhere near so rapidly.”
This uniquely steep spectrum has been challenging to explain. “We’ve had to undertake some cosmic archaeology to understand the ancient background story of the jellyfish,” stated Hodgson.
