Mysterious Arms Revealed
chandra_351 April 10th, 2007
Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Univ. of Maryland/A.S. Wilson et al.; Optical: Pal.Obs. DSS; IR: NASA/JPL-Caltech; VLA: NRAO/AUI/NSF
For decades, astronomers have known about the so-called anomalous arms in NGC 4258. Visible (seen in gold) and infrared (red) light reveals two prominent arms. However, radio (purple) and X-ray data from Chandra (blue) show two additional, offset arms. By combining all of these data, scientists have found evidence that the mysterious X-ray arms are due to shock waves generated by the supermassive black hole in the nucleus of NGC 4258. The shock waves heat the gas in the disk, causing it to radiate brightly in X-rays and other wavelengths.
Provider: Chandra X-ray Observatory
Image Source: http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2007/ngc4258/
Curator: Chandra X-ray Observatory, Cambridge, MA, USA
Image Use Policy: http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/image_use.html
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Image Details
Distance
Position Details
Color Mapping
- ID
- 351
- Subject Category
- C.5.1.1. C.5.1.1
- Subject Name
- NGC 4258 (M106):, NGC 4258
- Credits
- X-ray: NASA/CXC/Univ. of Maryland/A.S. Wilson et al.; Optical: Pal.Obs. DSS; IR: NASA/JPL-Caltech; VLA: NRAO/AUI/NSF
- Release Date
- 2007-04-10
- Lightyears
- 25,000,000.0
- Redshift
- 25,000,000.0
- Reference Url
- http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2007/ngc4258/
- Type
- Observation
- Image Quality
- Good
- Distance Notes
- Facility
- Chandra, Spitzer, DSS, NRAO
- Instrument
- ACIS, IRAC, DSS2R, VLA
- Color Assignment
- Blue, Red, Yellow, Purple
- Band
- X-ray, Infrared, Optical, Radio
- Bandpass
- X-ray, Mid-IR, R-band, L-band
- Central Wavelength
- 0.8267, 8000, 660, 2.5e8
- Start Time
- Integration Time
- Dataset ID
- Notes
- Coordinate Frame
- ICRS
- Equinox
- 2000.0
- Reference Value
- 184.740117226, 47.3037484082
- Reference Dimension
- 2400.0, 2001.0
- Reference Pixel
- 1171.38179988, 924.639098668
- Scale
- -6.491285e-05, 6.491285e-05
- Rotation
- -23.4888991136
- Coordinate System Projection:
- TAN
- Quality
- Full
- FITS Header
- Notes
- World Coordinate System resolved using PinpointWCS 0.9.0 revision 213+ by the Chandra X-ray Center
- Creator (Curator)
- Chandra X-ray Observatory
- URL
- http://chandra.harvard.edu
- Name
- Chandra X-ray Observatory Center
- cxcpub@cfa.harvard.edu
- Telephone
- 617.496.7941
- Address
- 60 Garden St.
- City
- Cambridge
- State/Province
- MA
- Postal Code
- 02138
- Country
- USA
- Rights
- http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/image_use.html
- Publisher
- Chandra X-ray Observatory Center
- Publisher ID
- chandra
- Resource ID
- ngc4258_comp.tif
- Resource URL
- http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2007/ngc4258/ngc4258_comp.tif
- Related Resources
- Metadata Date
- 2012-07-26T13:56:59-04:00
- Metadata Version
- 1.2
Detailed color mapping information coming soon...
