'H' is for Hot and Huge in Chandra Image
Happy #StarWarsDay! A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, a giant black hole at the center of a massive elliptical galaxy made a mark on its surroundings! An “H”-shaped structure is found in a detailed new X-ray map from Chandra X-ray Observatory of the multimillion-degree gas around the galaxy Messier 84 (M84).
As gas is captured by the gravitational force of the black hole, some of it will fall into the abyss, never to be seen again. Some of the gas, however, avoids this fate and instead gets blasted away from the black hole in the form of jets of particles. These jets can push out cavities, in the hot gas surrounding the black hole. Given the orientation of the jets to Earth and the profile of the hot gas, the cavities in M84 form what appears to resemble the letter “H.” The H-shaped structure in the gas is an example of pareidolia, which is when people see familiar shapes or patterns in random data. Pareidolia can occur in all kinds of data from clouds to rocks and astronomical images.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Princeton Univ/C. Bambic et al.; Optical: SDSS; Radio: NSF/NRAO/VLA/ESO; Image processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/N.Wolk
#NASAMarshall #NASA #astrophysics #astronomy #chandra #NASAChandra #galaxy #blackholeweek #supermassiveblackhole #blackhole
Read more about the Chanddra X-ray Observatory
'H' is for Hot and Huge in Chandra Image
Happy #StarWarsDay! A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, a giant black hole at the center of a massive elliptical galaxy made a mark on its surroundings! An “H”-shaped structure is found in a detailed new X-ray map from Chandra X-ray Observatory of the multimillion-degree gas around the galaxy Messier 84 (M84).
As gas is captured by the gravitational force of the black hole, some of it will fall into the abyss, never to be seen again. Some of the gas, however, avoids this fate and instead gets blasted away from the black hole in the form of jets of particles. These jets can push out cavities, in the hot gas surrounding the black hole. Given the orientation of the jets to Earth and the profile of the hot gas, the cavities in M84 form what appears to resemble the letter “H.” The H-shaped structure in the gas is an example of pareidolia, which is when people see familiar shapes or patterns in random data. Pareidolia can occur in all kinds of data from clouds to rocks and astronomical images.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Princeton Univ/C. Bambic et al.; Optical: SDSS; Radio: NSF/NRAO/VLA/ESO; Image processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/N.Wolk
#NASAMarshall #NASA #astrophysics #astronomy #chandra #NASAChandra #galaxy #blackholeweek #supermassiveblackhole #blackhole
Read more about the Chanddra X-ray Observatory