There is a cosmic struggle at the heart of faint radio-emitting galaxies. At their core, supermassive black holes launch high-speed jets of particles, while new stars are born in clouds of gas and dust. These processes shape the evolution of galaxies, but much of their activity is often hidden from view by thick interstellar dust. Unlike visible and ultraviolet light, which is absorbed and re-emitted in the far-infrared, radio waves can pass through, allowing astronomers to study these galaxies even in the most obscured environments.
A new study conducted by researchers from INAF-IRA and SISSA has announced the first results of the SHORES (Serendipitous H-ATLAS fields Observations of Radio Extragalactic Sources) project, a radio galaxy survey in total intensity and polarization conducted on the Australian Telescope Compact Array (ATCA), a radio interferometer located in Australia. The survey is centered on sky areas which allow to combine radio data with ancillary multiwavelength observations, so providing new insights into the properties, history and evolution of faint radio-emitting galaxies. Unlike previous surveys that typically cover large contiguous regions at uniform sensitivity, SHORES adopts a “multi-pencil beam” approach. This method, based on precise instrumental response measurements, allows for the detection of rare, bright sources (above 0.5 mJy) across 26 square degrees, while also cataloging over 95% of sources brighter than 0.15 mJy in a smaller, 7-square-degree area.
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