Friday, February 06, 2009

Black Hole Outflows From Centaurus A

Black Hole Outflows From Centaurus A
This image of Centaurus A shows a spectacular new view of a supermassive black hole's power. Jets and lobes powered by the central black hole in this nearby galaxy are shown by submillimeter data (colored orange) from the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX) telescope in Chile and X-ray data (colored blue) from the Chandra X-ray Observatory. Visible light data from the Wide Field Imager on the Max-Planck/ESO 2.2 m telescope, also located in Chile, shows the dust lane in the galaxy and background stars. The X-ray jet in the upper left extends for about 13,000 light years away from the black hole. The APEX data shows that material in the jet is travelling at about half the speed of light.




Centaurus A – click for 665×505 image



Additional information:

Black Hole Outflows From Centaurus A (1/28/09)

1 comment:

  1. Voowww, that's really a stunning photo. I adore space science and black holes are really interesting to learn more about and read.

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