An international team of astronomers studied an unusual extragalactic radio source known as IC 1531. In this new study, the nature of the high-energy radiation from this source was analyzed, indicating that the object is a radio galaxy.

Extragalactic radio sources reflect one of the most unusual, extreme and high-energy processes occurring in the Universe. They demonstrate a unique morphology and can provide valuable information about the evolution of galaxies and groups of galaxies. Such sources usually turn out to be radio galaxies, quasars or blazars emitting powerful radio emission fluxes.

Located about 350 million light-years from Earth, object IC 1531 (also referred to as PKS 0007-325) is an extragalactic radio source associated with a 3FGL gamma source J0009.9-3206. Although the source of IC 1531 is presented in many astronomical reviews and catalogs, to date its detailed study has not been carried out.

IC 1531

Based on observations made using the Large Area Telescope (LAT) telescope located onboard the NASA Fermi (Fermi) space gamma observatory, source IC 1531 was classified as an unspecified blazar. Now, in a new study by Titian Bassi (Tiziana Bassi) from the Institute of Astrophysics of Space and Space Physics, Italy, she studied the high-energy radiation of the source IC 1531 and was able to correctly classify this source.

According to this study, based on observations in various regions of the electromagnetic spectrum, source IC 1531 demonstrates a structure that includes the core and jets observed in radio and X-rays, which are enclosed within a radio structure about 717000 light-years in size. The study found that the radio and X-ray brightness of this large-scale radio structure decreases as it moves from the core to the periphery, and the x-ray spectrum of the jets corresponds to synchrotron radiation.

The observed morphology of the source IC 1531 indicates that it is a dim radio galaxy of Fanaroff-Riley type I (FR1), the paper indicates.

The large-scale radio and X-ray morphology of this source indicates that it is probably a FRI-type radio galaxy whose jets are visible at moderate inclination angles.


Unusual radio source IC 1531
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