A supermassive black hole at the heart of a galaxy over 600,000,000 light-years away in the constellation Draco, is likely the culprit behind the mysteriously glowing appearance of the galaxy seen here, dubbed '3C 305.' Data collected by the Chandra X-Ray Observatory and a myriad of ground based telescopes seems to indicate that the black hole at the center is illuminating interstellar gas clouds, thus producing x-rays discernible through certain filters. Oddly enough, a multiwavelength peek at the area also shows that it is also a heavy source of radio emission, likely the result of a jet that's spewing from the black hole. Yet that jet doesn't seem to overlap with the x-ray jet as astronomers expected it would.
The observed colors of the structure identified in this image are actually x-ray and optical images that were taken by the Chandra X-Ray Observatory and the Hubble Space Telescope. The dominant red and light blue colors are x-rays and optical images provided by the Chandra X-ray Observatory. The optical data that mainly outlines oxygen emission was captured by the Hubble Space Telescope. The darker blue areas are radio data that was collected from the Very Large Array, as well as the Multi-Element Radio-Linked Interferometer Network that's stationed in the United Kingdom.
Jaime is a freelance writer, who feels like she can't be summarized in a single paragraph. She will say, however, that she is very passionate about science (particularly physics and astronomy). She used this passion to launch 'From Quarks to Quasars' in 2012.
Entities 0 Name: Chandra X-Ray Observatory Count: 3 1 Name: Hubble Space Telescope Count: 2 2 Name: Draco Count: 1 3 Name: United Kingdom Count: 1 Related 0 Url: http://ift.tt/VDK8VP Title: NASA's RXTE Satellite Decodes the Rhythm of an Unusual Black Hole Description: Astronomers have uncovered rhythmic pulsations from a rare type of black hole 12 million light-years away by sifting through archival data from NASA's Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) satellite. The signals have helped astronomers identify an unusual midsize black hole called M82 X-1, which is the brightest X-ray source in a galaxy known as Messier 82.
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