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Gemini Observatory Captures Multi-Dimensional Movie of Active Galaxy's Core
Thursday, March 21, 2002
Gemini Observatory

Image Credit: Jon Lomberg.

An Integral Field Unit (IFU) like the one used in the GMOS uses hundreds of tiny optical fibers (each thinner than an human hair) with tiny micro-lenses attached to guide light from the telescope's 2-D image to a spectrograph. The spectrograph produces one individual spectrum for each fiber for a total of 1500 individual spectra that can each reveal details of the physical conditions and velocity of the gas, dust and stars it studies. This system was the first IFU to be installed on the new generation of 8 and 10m telescopes when it was commissioned on the Gemini-North telescope in 2001.

PRESS RELEASE
Astronomers observing with the Gemini North Telescope on Hawaii's Mauna Kea have a powerful new tool to probe mysterious cosmic caldrons like those at the cores of galaxies and stellar nurseries.

Using the recently commissioned Integral Field Unit (IFU) on the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph (GMOS), astronomers at the observatory have recently obtained a complete multi-dimensional picture of the dynamic flow of gas and stars at the core of an active galaxy named NGC 1068 in a single snap-shot. The resulting windfall of data has been transformed into an animation that dramatically reveals the internal gyrations of the galaxy -- including the interactions of a pair of galactic-scale jets that spew material for thousands of light years away from the suspected black hole at the galaxy's core.

"The Gemini data of NGC 1068 reveal one of the lesser know features of galaxy jets," explains Gemini North Associate Director Dr. Jean-René Roy. "For the first time we were able to clearly see the jet's expanding lobe as its hypersonic bow shock slams directly into the underlying gas disk of the galaxy. It's like a huge wave smashing onto a galactic shoreline."
(More: Gemini Observatory News Source)
2002 © Gemini 8M Telescopes Project, Hilo, HI.

Dan