Overview
- The VV 340A system hosts an S-shaped, precessing radio jet that is powering a galaxy-scale outflow, marking the first clear case seen in a disk galaxy.
- JWST, Keck/KCWI, VLA, and ALMA data reveal a superheated, ionized plasma structure stretching roughly 20,000 light-years aligned with the jet.
- Modeling indicates a mass-loss rate of 19.4 ± 7.9 solar masses per year, a pace expected to suppress future star formation and shorten the galaxy’s star-forming lifetime by about 250 million years.
- Precessing jets of this power have mostly been associated with giant ellipticals, so finding one in a gas-rich, merging spiral challenges prevailing feedback models.
- The team plans deeper, higher-resolution radio observations to probe whether accretion-disk dynamics or a second supermassive black hole drives the wobble, and has flagged 32 similar galaxies for follow-up.