G359.87+0.18, an FR II radio galaxy 15 ' from Sagittarius A*: Implicationsfor the scattering region in the Galactic center

G359.87+0.18 is an enigmatic object located 15' from Sgr A*. It has been va riously classified as an extragalactic source, a Galactic jet source, and a young supernova remnant. We present new observations of G359.87+0.18 betwe en 0.33 and 15 GHz and an H I absorption spectrum and use these to argue th at this source is an FR II radio galaxy. We are able to place a crude limit on its redshift of z greater than or similar to 0.1. The source has a spec tral index of alpha < -1 (S proportional to upsilon(alpha)), suggestive of a radio galaxy with a redshift z greater than or similar to 2. The scatteri ng diameters of Sgr A* and several nearby OH masers (approximate to 1 " at 1 GHz) indicate that a region of enhanced scattering is along the line of s ight to the Galactic center. If the region covers the Galactic center unifo rmly, the implied diameter for a background source is at least 600 " at 0.3 3 GHz, which is in contrast with the observed 20 " diameter of G359.87+0.18 . Using the scattering diameter of a nearby OH maser OH 359.762+0.120 and t he widths of two nearby nonthermal threads, G0.08+0.15 and G359.79+0.17, we show that a uniform scattering region should cover G359.87+0.18. We theref ore conclude that the Galactic center scattering region is inhomogeneous on a scale of 5' (approximate to 10 pc at a distance of 8.5 kpc). This scale is comparable with the size scale of molecular clouds in the Galactic cente r. The close agreement between these two length scales is an indication tha t the scattering region is linked intimately to the Galactic center molecul ar clouds.