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Ever wondered what the hosts of powerful supermassive black holes look like?
Learn moreThe different workflows implemented include Galaxy Zoo 1 for very basic analysis, Galaxy Zoo 2 for some more complex analysis, and Galaxy Zoo DECaLS
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The many shapes of BASS Statistics
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By the numbers
Message from the researcher
There's still much to learn when it comes to the links between AGNs and their host galaxies. Even a property as elemental as the morphology of the host galaxy is worth taking a look at, and the BASS sample is a great scientific opportunity to do so.
maiguelPAbout The many shapes of BASS
It's not uncommon for galaxies to have a supermassive black hole at their nucleus, and some of them might even contain one that's actively emitting huge amounts of radiation; we refer to these galaxies as hosts of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN).
All the galaxies that you're about to see are AGN hosts, and they were selected using X-Ray observations from the Swift-BAT Hard X-Ray survey, which form part of the BAT AGN Spectroscopic Survey (BASS) Data Release 2 (DR2). The neat part about this study comes from the sample itself, because these galaxies are a very representative sample of AGNs across the whole sky and AGN subtypes. This means that we have a complete census of local AGNs that also work as local analogs for more distant (and difficult to study) AGNs, and that's all thanks to the Hard X-Ray selection.
One of the many things to do with such a promising sample is to study a property such as morphology, which serves as an immediate tracer of a galaxy's life history. The BASS sample represents a great chance to probe into the different morphologies present in the hosts of these AGNs.