Galaxy Zoo Starburst Talk

What does a green colour signalize?

  • Johanson69 by Johanson69

    If i remember correctly, the green colour in the area to the top left of the center is correlated to resorption of light in oxygen, and thus hints towards a higher metalliciy. Or it shows the presence of ionized oxygen?

    Posted

  • JeanTate by JeanTate

    The close-to-symmetric positions of the three point-like blobs may point to a lens; the difference in apparent colors suggests otherwise.

    Intense green is one thing which makes Green Peas so distinctive; for them it's very strong [OIII] emission (and modest redshift). Over in the GZ forum, there are several threads with images of 'green spots' (sometimes 'in/near an elliptical'); perhaps one of the most interesting is the OotD on "Green Beans": Saturday, 15 December 2012: Green Bean Galaxies and Flashing Quasars, which references another GZ forum thread Paper:Green Beans:Quasar light echos? (cites Hanny's V., Voorwerpjes, G. Peas).

    In this case, without a spectrum, I'd say it's impossible to tell what's causing the apparent green (which may, just possibly, be an artifact).

    Posted