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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 August 2015
Radio galaxies are known to exhibit a variety of scales in their structure. First we have the nuclear sources, which so far have not been completely resolved even on the scale of 1/10 milliarcsecond with VLBI observing methods (e.g. Preuss, 1981). Then we have the ‘jets’ (which at some stage break up into ‘blobs’) which are considered to transfer energy from the ‘nuclear engine’ to the outer heads. The latter appear to be the sites of transfer of the collimated jet energy into a diffuse emission region. Despite their usually low brightness these diffuse emission regions dominate the internal energy content in particles and fields, even for the collimated doubles. Note that only 1% of the total energy in Cyg A is in the hot spots (Perola, 1981).