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Black Hole Outflows From Centaurus A
2009-01-29
- Classification
- Photograph
- Museum
- Wikimedia Commons
- Credit line
- https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso0903a/
- Rights
- CC BY 4.0, as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its subject is for older viewers (war, death, the Passion, drink or the like). How works are placed
About this work
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.
Coordinates (J2000): RA 13h 25m 27.62s Dec -43° 01' 08.80"
Constellation: Centaurus
Observation Date: 6 pointings between 03/22/2007 and 05/30/2007
Observation Time: 199 hours
Color Code: X-ray (blue), Submillimeter (orange); Optical (white, brown)
Instrument: ACIS
Also Known As: Cen A, NGC 5128
Distance Estimate: About 11 million light years
