Abstract
We have observed the nearby radio galaxy Centaurus A (NGC 5128) with the ROSAT HRI. With a distance of about 3 Mpc, this object contains the closest of the three extragalactic Jets which have been studied in X-rays. We confirm the existence of separate knots of X-ray emission which are coincident with the radioknots. The angular scale of 15 pc arcsec−1 now permits us to resolve the jet laterally even in the X-ray domain and to study the morphology of the jet in detail. We do not detect a counter-jet, but the HRI images reveal an X-ray filament which is associated with the shock front of the southern inner radio lobe (on the counter-jet side). This filament probably traces shock-heated gas.
In addition we detect diffuse emission from the host galaxy of the AGN which is partially absorbed by the cold matter of the prominent absorption band on the line of sight towards the nucleus of NGC5128.
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© 1996 Springer-Verlag
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Wagner, S.J., Döbereiner, S. (1996). X-ray observations of Cen A. In: Kundt, W. (eds) Jets from Stars and Galactic Nuclei. Lecture Notes in Physics, vol 471. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0102613
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0102613
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