Jets in astrophysics: A review

Abstract

This paper briefly reviews some historical data on the broad-band variability of active galaxies, including Centaurus A (NGC 5128), and shows that these data bear some remarkable similarities and significant differences to data from some epochs of galactic microquasars, including GRS 1915+105. The paper then considers the details of some of the results of the MOJAVE Collaboration radio data at mas (i.e., parsec) scales for the complex structures of AGN jets. I also comment on the recent paper by Bonning et al. (2009) which shows the first results from the Fermi Space Telescope for the concurrent variability at optical, UV, IR, and γ-ray variability of 3C343.3.