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Sagittarius A: Center of the Milky Way

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sgra_gas_w11The center of the Milky Way galaxy, with The supermassive black hole Sagittarius A–at center–is revealed in this image. Astronomers have used NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory to take a major step in understanding why gas around this object is extraordinarily faint in X-rays. Click the image to learn more.

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Evidence for a pair of supermassive black holes in a spiral galaxy has been found in data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. This main image is a composite of X-rays from Chandra (blue) and optical data from the Hubble Space Telescope (gold) of the spiral galaxy NGC 3393. Meanwhile, the inset box shows the central region of NGC 3993 as observed just by Chandra. The diffuse blue emission in the large image is from hot gas near the center of NGC 3393 and shows low energy X-rays. The inset shows only high energy X-rays, including emission from iron. This type of emission is a characteristic feature of growing black holes that are heavily obscured by dust and gas. Two separate peaks of X-ray emission (roughly at 11 o'clock and 4 o'clock) can clearly be seen in the inset box. These two sources are black holes that are actively growing, generating X-ray emission as gas falls towards the black holes and becomes hotter. The obscured regions around both black holes block the copious amounts of optical and ultraviolet light produced by infalling material. Credit: NASA ChandraNewly discovered supermassive black holes are just 160 million light years from Earth Chandra X-ray Observatory turns up black hole bonanza in galaxy next door Chandra X-ray Observatory Celebrates 15th Anniversary Ghostly gamma-ray beams blast from Milky Way’s center
 

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