NGC 922, Spiral Galaxy, X-Ray
NGC 922 was formed by the collision between two galaxies. This collision triggered the formation of new stars in the shape of a ring. Some of these were massive stars that evolved and collapsed to form black holes. Most of the bright X-ray sources in Chandra's image of NGC 922 are black holes pulling material in from the winds of massive companion stars. Seven of these are what astronomers classify as, ultraluminous X-ray sources, (ULXs). These are thought to contain stellar-mass black holes that are at least ten times more massive than the sun, which places them in the upper range for this class of black hole. They are a different class from the supermassive black holes found at the centers of galaxies, which are millions to billions of times the mass of the sun. Release date December 6, 2012.
Size: 3600px × 3600px
Photo credit: © Photo Researchers / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: -ray, 21st, 922, 2012, acis, advanced, astronomical, astronomy, barred, black, body, ccd, celestial, century, chandra, cxc, deep, detection, emission, event, galaxies, galaxy, heavenly, hole, horizon, image, imaging, ngc, object, observation, observatory, point, return, science, sky, sources, space, spectrometer, spiral, stellar-mass, ultraluminous, ulx
