#centaurus a

Centaurus A

Giant Elliptical Galaxy Centaurus A ©

NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration

"A fantastic jumble of young blue star clusters, gigantic glowing gas clouds, and imposing dark dust lanes surrounds the central region of the active galaxy Centaurus A. This mosaic of Hubble Space Telescope images taken in blue, green, and red light had been processed to present a natural colour picture of this cosmic maelstrom. Infrared images from Hubble also showed that hidden at the center of this activity are what seem to be disks of matter spiraling into a black hole with a billion times the mass of the Sun! Centaurus A itself is the result of a collision of two galaxies and the left over debris is steadily being consumed by the black hole. Astronomers believe that such black hole "central engines" generate the radio, X-ray, and gamma-ray energy radiated by Centaurus A and other active galaxies. But for an active galaxy Centaurus A is close, a mere 10 million light-years away, and is a relatively convenient laboratory for exploring these powerful sources of energy."

The "burning heart" of Centaurus A, NGC 5128 // Wolfgang Promper

Centaurus A

[Reblogs are very very appreciated(*´▽｀*)💖💖]

An article published in the journal "The Astrophysical Journal" reports the results of X-ray observations of the jets emitted by the supermassive black hole at the center of the Centaurus A galaxy. A team of researchers used NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory to find a V-shaped structure that indicates that one of the jets hit something whose nature is uncertain. Only Chandra's X-ray observations revealed that unusual structure, cataloged as C4, while many other instruments, especially radio telescopes, had never shown such anomalies.