In Your Eyes – The NGC 4486 Jet by JP Metsavainio

by Tammy Plotner on April 28, 2009

Parallel NGC 4486 Jet by JP Metsavainio

Parallel NGC 4486 Jet by JP Metsavainio


We’re all familiar with the photo of the jet of material emanating from the core of the Virgo A galaxy as imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope, but this 5,000 light year long streamer coming from the nucleus of M87 has never been more “in your eyes” than it is through the stereo magic visualizations produced by Jukka Metsavainio. Are you ready to take a closer look at this relativistic jet of extremely powerful plasma emerging from one of the best studied radio galaxies around? Then step inside…

Whenever we present a dimensional visualization it is done in two fashions. The first is called “Parallel Vision” and it is much like a magic eye puzzle. When you open the full size image and your eyes are the correct distance from the screen, the images will seem to merge and create a 3D effect. However, for some folks, this doesn’t work well – so Jukka has also created the “Cross Version”, where you simply cross your eyes and the images will merge, creating a central image which appears 3D. As we learned with the last image, it might not always work for all people, but there are a few other tricks you can try. Now sit back and prepare to be blown away…

Cross NGC 4486 Jet by JP Metsavainio

Cross NGC 4486 Jet by JP Metsavainio


The year is 1918, and high on top of Mt. Hamilton at Lick Observatory an astronomer named Herbert Curtis is busy studying Messier Object 87. But, Mr. Curtis isn’t your ordinary garden-variety astronomer. In just two more years, he and a man named Harlow Shapely were going to have it out publicly about the nature of these “distant fuzzies” and Curtis was going to be eventually proved correct: Spiral “nebulae” were indeed galaxies just like our own. However, good old Herbert was noticing something about M87 that would take nearly 8 decades to discover its true nature… a “curious straight ray” coming straight from its heart. Now, you’ve got to give Herbert some very big credit for being an astute visual observer, because this was back in the day long before wide field imaging camera, infra-red technology, x-ray photography, radio studies and more. Heck, it would be 2 more years before Hubble began identifying Cepheid variables and 10 more years before interstellar absorption was discovered!

Are you ready to fast forward to 1977? Because it would be about that long before another noble name in galaxy studies would again reveal astonishing visual things about M87′s jet by resolving knots and clouds – Halton C. Arp of Mt. Palomar and J. Lorre of JPL. “The shred itself, however, is the object of most significance for establishing the reality of the ejection of the radio source. It is difficult to make a quantitative statement, but objects of this nature are not frequently seen. The inference is plain that the radio source has either left a wake behind it, (i.e. condensations along its track) or that this is some kind of jet or material associated with the ejection of the radio source form the parent peculiar galaxy.”

It wasn’t long until the discovery of a disk of rapidly rotating gas around the nucleus of M87 occurred and thanks to the Hubble Space telescope, we were taking closer than ever looks into the violent active nucleus of this galaxy. “We see almost a dozen clouds which appear to be moving out from the galaxy’s center at between four and six times the speed of light. These are all located in a narrow jet of gas streaming out from the region of the black hole at the galaxy’s center,” said Dr. John Biretta of the Space Telescope Science Institute. “We believe this apparent speed translates into an actual velocity just slightly below that of light itself.”

What we know now is the jet in M87 connects the innermost black hole to the outer parts of the source. It supplies the radio source and the surrounding region with energy and relativistic plasma. The speeds reported are two to three times faster than the fastest motions previously recorded in M87, the only nearby galaxy to show evidence for superluminal motion. “This discovery goes a long way towards confirming that radio galaxies, quasars and exotic BL Lac objects are basically the same beast, powered by super massive black holes, and differ only in orientation with respect to the observer,” Biretta said.

And this time the orientation is right in your eyes…

Many thanks to JP Metsavainio of Northern Galactic for his magic with Hubble Space Telescope images and allowing us this incredible look inside another mystery of space.

Tammy is a professional astronomy author, President Emeritus of Warren Rupp Observatory and retired Astronomical League Executive Secretary. She’s received a vast number of astronomy achievement and observing awards, including the Great Lakes Astronomy Achievement Award, RG Wright Service Award and the first woman astronomer to achieve Comet Hunter's Gold Status. Be sure to check out her new astronomy observing book - Night Sky Companion 2012!

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  • Jon Hanford

    Nereid, The Wiki CMB page has an abbreviated link to the Gamow reference (hard to put in context but clearly out of date and misleading).

  • Nereid

    @Jon Hanford: I appreciate your efforts to address Total Science’s comment.

    However, based on my – admittedly limited – experience with the material he supposedly quotes, I feel the most prudent first step is to request of Total Science the specific references for the material which he (supposedly) quotes. With that in hand, every reader is free to investigate the accuracy of the quote, its context, etc, and from that common basis proceed to investigate.

  • Anaconda

    The Gamow prediction is old — that is certain. But the prediction was off by a large margin.

    The point is simple enough: Whether you were a “big banger” or a steady-state proponent did not effect your prediction.

    So, it seems accuracy of prediction was independent of the theory you supported, therefore, neither theory was particularly helpful in deriving accurate predictions.

  • Jon Hanford

    But if you follow the CMB prediction timeline at the Wiki CMB page, you can see how researchers zeroed in on the correct value over many years , whereas Peratt’s estimate of the CMB temperature is the ONLY prediction quoted over the 40 year lifetime of ‘Plasma Cosmology’. Why is this? And, as Nereid noted, links to sources are greatly appreciated, especially any published in the last 5 years.

  • Total Science

    Nereid,

    For someone who is such an authority on Hilton Ratcliffe, I would’ve thought you would’ve at least taken the time to read his only book. It’s called The Virtue of Heresy and the reference can be found on page 80.

  • Total Science

    Jon Hanford,

    I’ll tell you why. Since the Big Bang prediction was off by 4 orders of magnitude they had to keep changing their predictions ad hoc. Since Plasma Cosmology is precise and correct, only one prediction was required.

  • Total Science

    Jon Hanford,

    “For some reason, Peratt’s estimate is not discussed.”

    It’s called censorship. The gravitation cult is so terrified of Peratt they deleted his Wiki page.

  • Nereid

    Total Science,

    Surely you are pulling our legs?!

    A book, published in English, by an established publisher, that lets its author get away with such a gross error of grammar!?!?

    Maybe there’s a simple explanation?

    How about a reference to each of the Peratt and Gamow statements (in your comment of “April 29th, 2009 at 3:48 pm”)?

    ETA: per your “April 29th, 2009 at 6:56 pm” (“It’s called censorship. The gravitation cult is so terrified of Peratt they deleted his Wiki page.”); do I hear you correctly? that you cannot provide a reference to “Plasma Cosmology on the other hand predicted 2.8 degrees Kelvin (Peratt).”?

  • Nereid

    @Anaconda: as Total Science has not, yet, been forthcoming with a reference to Gamow and his (supposed) prediction, and as you seem to be familiar with it (I may be wrong), perhaps you could provide one?

  • Jon Hanford

    @ Nereid, Unfortunately, as you can see, this illogic is so deeply entrenched that even after terabytes of evidence could be amassed to back up the claims of mainstream astrophysics, your entire argument would be relegated to just another folly from the ‘gravitation cult’ majority. I’m sure you’re aware that by now astrophysicists tremble at any of Peratt’s pronouncements (who is a trained laboratory physicist at LLNL, not an astrophysicist with telescope time and an immersion in this specialized field of astrophysical gravitational theory, ca. 2009.). Where are Peratt’s papers with detailed predictions of the CMB spectrum Planck will measure? What about his predictions concerning the CMB spectrum observed by WMAP? New calculations based on the tenants of PC that are more closely in line with the measured temperature of the CMB? Total Science states: “Since Plasma Cosmology is precise and correct, only one prediction was required.” What, no more predictions are forthcoming from PC on the CMB spectrum. No detailed PC interpretation of the WMAP CMB spectrum? Where are all the recent (last 2 years) papers concerning Plasma Cosmology and the observed and predicted Cosmic Microwave Background and how they specifically are explained by Plasma Cosmology?

  • Jon Hanford

    I guess the ‘gravitation cult’ missed Stelve Milgrom and the Wiki MOND page. I guess they haven’t got around to deleting that page yet, or the numerous MOND papers I see published in many mainstream astronomical journals.

  • Nereid

    @Jon Hanford: from my perspective, as a newbie and as someone who’s not exchanged comments with Total Science before, you’re way too far down the road.

    You see, I can’t even read the material which Total Science says he’s (she’s?) quoting, because no references have been given (Gamow, Peratt and 2.8K), so I’m in no position to comment yet (though I will say that he too is getting way ahead of himself with “Since Plasma Cosmology is precise and correct, only one prediction was required.”: we have only his word that this is, in fact, a prediction, made by Peratt, based on/derived from Plasma Cosmology).

    Not to worry, I’m patient.

  • Nereid

    @Jon Hanford: do you mean Stacy McGaugh (The MOND pages: http://www.astro.umd.edu/~ssm/mond/)?

  • Jon Hanford

    @ Nereid : Sorry, meant to reference Mordehai Milgroms MOND theory as presented by Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOND . As for forthcoming links to papers by Peratt and other PC ‘scientists’, I’ve, asked before, and usually the 1995 paper you found through Google is proffered. Try a Google search for new peer-reviewed papers relating Plasma Cosmology to any specific topic in astrophysics . The dearth of ‘hits’ compared to that of a pretty radical theory like MOND is my argument against conspiracy theories against ‘Plasma Cosmology’.

  • Nereid

    @Jon Hanford: thanks.

    Still no word from Total Science, but in the meantime I rather doubt that that 1995 Peratt paper is the source of his (Total Science’s) “Plasma Cosmology on the other hand predicted 2.8 degrees Kelvin (Peratt).”

    For starters, there’s no mention of 2.8 degrees Kelvin in the 1995 paper; but anyway, as the CMB was discovered in 1964, I doubt anyone would assert that a paper published in 1995 predicted something that had happened over 30 years prior!

    I’m optimistic that Total Science will comment soon, and provide good inputs.

  • Nereid

    UT date April 29th, 2009 at 3:48 pm; Total Science wrote:

    “Plasma Cosmology on the other hand predicted 2.8 degrees Kelvin (Peratt).”

    The CMB was discovered, by accident, by Penzias and Wilson, in 1964.

    A. Peratt’s PhD thesis (“Wave Conversion and Resonance Below the Second Electron Cyclotron Harmonic. Oblique Incidence.”) is dated 1971, according to ADS (which cites as source “Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 32-05, Section: B, page: 2941″).

    So it’s rather unlikely that Peratt is the Plasma Cosmologist who predicted the CMB temperature, which leads to the thought that something Peratt wrote mentions a prediction of the CMB temperature, using an approach which Total Science (and/or Peratt) considers to be true to Plasma Cosmology. But who would have done such work, before 1964? After all, wasn’t it only in 1965 that Alfvén (Worlds-Antiworlds) kicked off this field of study? And that book certainly does not contain any “2.8 K” claim, does it?

    To quote Alice, curiouser and curiouser.

  • Jon Hanford

    Thanks for the info on the 1971 Peratt paper, that’s a new one to me. But, as we’ve asked repeatedly, no link to a pre-discovery CMB prediction made utilizing ‘Plasma Cosmology’ is forthcoming. I would think such an important piece of work would be proudly held up and referenced to bolster the status of that theory. I’m glad your patient, Nereid “Curiouser and curiouser” indeed.

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