Topic: Radio Observations Provide New Explanation for Hanny's Voorwerp

[sam]

Is Hanny's Voorwerp the result of a "light echo" of a violent event that happened long ago or perhaps is this mystifying blob of glowing gas being fueled by an ongoing, and current phenomenon? A just-released paper about the Voorwerp offers a new explanation for this perplexing, seemingly one-of-a-kind object in the constellation of Leo Minor. If you haven't heard the remarkable story, the object was discovered in 2007 by Dutch school teacher Hanny Van Arkel while she was classifying galaxies for the Galaxy Zoo online citizen science project.  Until now, the working hypothesis for the explanation of this unusual object was that we might be seeing the "light echo" of a quasar outburst event that occurred millions of years ago. But new radio observations reveal that instead, a black hole in that same nearby galaxy might be producing a radio jet, shooting a thin beam directly at this cloud of gas, causing it to light up.

http://www.universetoday.com/2010/06/24/radio-observations-provide-new-explanation-for-hannys-voorwerp/

- the paper is an interesting read as I found out the other day - good to see that these blogs keep up-to-date with the preprint servers.

[Clive]

That is a much more sensible explanation Sam.  The light echo explanation seemed weird from the outset!   A very interesting 'object' nevertheless.