Sagittarius A*, Composite
Sagittarius A* is a bright and very compact astronomical radio source at the center of the Milky Way Galaxy, near the border of the constellations Sagittarius and Scorpius. The center of the Milky Way galaxy, with the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*) located in the middle, is revealed in these images. Astronomers have used NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory to take a major step in understanding why gas around Sgr A* is extraordinarily faint in X-rays. The large image contains X-rays from Chandra in blue and infrared emission from the Hubble Space Telescope in red and yellow. The inset shows a close-up view of Sgr A* only in X-rays, covering a region half a light year wide. The diffuse X-ray emission is from hot gas captured by the black hole and being pulled inwards. This hot gas originates from winds produced by a disk-shaped distribution of young massive stars observed in infrared observations (mouse over the image for the distribution of these massive stars). These new findings are the result of one of the biggest observing campaigns ever performed by Chandra. During 2012, Chandra collected about five weeks worth of observations to capture unprecedented X-ray images and energy signatures of multi-million degree gas swirling around Sgr A*, a black hole with about 4 million times the mass of the Sun. At just 26,000 light years from Earth, Sgr A* is one of very few black holes in the Universe where we can actually witness the flow of matter nearby. Release date August 29, 2013.
Size: 3600px × 3600px
Photo credit: © Photo Researchers / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: *, -ray, -star, 2013, 21st, acis, advanced, astronomical, astronomy, black, body, ccd, celestial, center, century, chandra, composite, core, cosmography, cosmological, cosmology, cosmos, cxc, deep, detection, emission, event, galactic, galaxies, galaxy, heavenly, hole, horizon, hst, hubble, image, imaging, milky, object, observation, observatory, point, return, sagittarius, science, sgr, sky, space, spectrometer, star, system, telescope
