User:Mhardcastle/Radio galaxies
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Radio galaxies and their relatives, radio-loud quasars and blazars, are types of active galaxy which are very luminous at radio wavelengths (up to 1038 W between 10 MHz and 100 GHz). The radio emission is due to the synchrotron process. The observed structure in radio emission is determined by the interaction between twin jets and the external medium, modified by the effects of relativistic beaming. Radio-loud active galaxies are interesting not only in themselves, but also because they can be detected at large distances, making them valuable tools for observational cosmology. Recently, a good deal of work has been done on the effects of these objects on the intergalactic medium, particularly in galaxy groups and clusters.