From: dwells@fits.cv.nrao.edu (Don Wells)
Subject: Re: Supermassive stars and HD limit (was Big Bang...)
Organization: nrao
	<DWELLS.92Aug22090630@fits.cv.nrao.edu> <BtIw8z.6nC@well.sf.ca.us>
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1992 05:07:59 GMT

In article <BtIw8z.6nC@well.sf.ca.us> metares@well.sf.ca.us (Tom Van
Flandern) writes:
      ....and dwells@fits.cv.nrao.edu (Don Wells) replied:
 DCW> ...  In the context of your Meta model there are two important
 DCW> points about the plasma jets. First, .. They are as big
 DCW> as whole galaxies and their radiated energies are many, many
 DCW> orders of magnitude greater than those of Galactic objects like
 DCW> the Crab...

 TVF> But all these references to size and energy assume cosmological
 TVF> distances, which are not consistent with the Meta Model context.
 TVF> Reduce the distances and the numbers work out more sensibly;
 TVF> i.e. we don't need fantastic unknown energy mechanisms.  

The sizes and energy outputs of plasma jets in nearby radio galaxies
are known because of the usual galaxy distance estimates. The August
1992 issue of PASP contains a major review of galaxy distance
measurement techniques. The front cover of the issue has a picture of
M87, enhanced to show its globular clusters; the caption describes how
the authors used multiple distance indicators to estimate the distance
to M87.  M87 is an elliptical *galaxy* whose distance is indiputable.
The sizes and energies of the jets in the Virgo Cluster galaxies are
very impressive, and will be difficult to explain with your
Meta-Theory.

 DCW> The second point about the plasma jets is that their morphology
 DCW> is the same for radio galaxies and quasars.

 TVF> The Meta Model also infers a genetic relationship between radio
 TVF> galaxies and quasars.  

 DCW> Radio astronomers who specialize in this field regard them all
 DCW> as one type of thing, differing only in power output,
 DCW> orientation and galactic and intergalactic medium effects.

 TVF> That is one theory, which has come under heavy attack for a
 TVF> variety of good reasons.  See, e.g., Boroson & Green, Ap.J.Supp.
 TVF> 80, 109-135 (1992): The unification model for AGN's, radio
 TVF> galaxies, and quasars cannot be due to varying orientation.. 

The phrase "one theory" in your sentence carries implications which
misrepresent the history of our science. For almost thirty years there
has been only *ONE* basic theory of the AGN phenomenon. As Lars Baath
said in a paper which appeared several months ago in Science: "..One
of the few opinions about quasars where the consensus has been steady
since the quasars discovery in 1963 is that the energy is
gravitational in origin.."

The phrase "heavy attack" in your sentence also misrepresents the
implications of the Boroson & Green paper for plasma jets. Their paper
has almost nothing to do with the standard picture of plasma jets. It
is concerned with the phenomena of the accretion disk and broad-line
regions, which are only indirectly related to the jets. Jet
morphologies are certainly related to orientation.

 DCW> ... The plasma jet of M87 is as large as the whole
 DCW> galaxy! This is tens of kiloparsecs! ..
              
Correction: the faint parts of the cocoon structure are quite large,
but the bright part of the M87 jet is only(!) 1.8 kiloparsecs in
extent (assuming H0=100, q0=-0.5; see Bridle & Perley, "Extragalactic
Radio Jets", pp.319-358, Ann.Rev.Astron.Astrophys. 22, 1984).

 TVF> I do not have any dispute with AGN plasma jets being several
 TVF> orders of magnitude larger than the Crab jets.  If they came
 TVF> from supermassive stars, they should be much larger affairs; but
 TVF> by altogether reasonable amounts.  I do have a problem when you
 TVF> try to make some of them the largest contiguous structures in
 TVF> the universe.  

The jets in Virgo Cluster galaxies are *kiloparsecs* in size. A jet in
NGC1265 (Perseus Cluster) is 18 kiloparsecs, for NGC1275 the size is 5
and for NGC1399 the size is 8.1 kiloparsecs. These are not quasars,
they are not exotic objects, they are *galaxies* which are in the NGC,
and the sizes of the jets are comparable to the sizes of the galaxies.
If your Meta-Theory has trouble explaining contiguous, collimated,
*bright* structures with sizes of kiloparsecs that occur in galaxies,
then maybe its "engine" needs to be rebuilt!  :-)

 DCW> M84 is an ordinary elliptical galaxy in the Virgo Cluster.

 TVF> I concur..

Good, then we agree that its distance is indisputable for the purposes
of this discussion.  M84 (also known as NGC4374 and 3C272.1) has a
beautiful pair of plasma jets coming out of its nucleus.  [see Figure
1 p.321 of Bridle&Perley cited above, also Laing&Bridle, MNRAS 228,
557-571, 1987] From end to end they are more than 6 kiloparsecs in
extent!  Arp (in his discussion of alignments of objects in the Virgo
Cluster field) points out that the M87=3C274 jet points toward M84,
but he does not mention that M84 also has jets, jets which are *not*
aligned with any of the other objects in the field.  The spatial
extent, surface brightness, integrated power, and collimation of these
jets imply that extraordinary things are happening in the nucleus of
M84.  I will be very surprised if the putative supermassive stars of
your Meta-Theory are able to produce the phenomena of the plasma jets
that we see in M87 and M84.
--

Donald C. Wells             Associate Scientist        dwells@nrao.edu
National Radio Astronomy Observatory                   +1-804-296-0277
520 Edgemont Road                                 Fax= +1-804-296-0278
Charlottesville, Virginia 22903-2475 USA            78:31.1W, 38:02.2N