A Remarkable Outburst from an Old Black Hole
chandra_508 April 30th, 2012
Credit: Left image - Optical: ESO/VLT; Close-up - X-ray: NASA/CXC/Curtin University/R.Soria et al., Optical: NASA/STScI/Middlebury College/F.Winkler et al.
An extraordinary outburst from a black hole where its X-ray output increased at least 3,000 times -- has been seen with NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory in the galaxy M83. Chandra observed what is called a ULX, or ultraluminous X-ray source. The panel on the left features an optical view of the full M83 galaxy, while the right panel shows a close up of the region where the ULX was found with data from Chandra (pink) and Hubble (blue and yellow). The remarkable behavior of this ULX in M83 provides direct evidence for a population of older, volatile, stellar-mass black holes.
Provider: Chandra X-ray Observatory
Image Source: http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2012/m83/
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
- 508
- Subject Category
- C.5.1.1 C.5.3.4
- Subject Name
- M83
- Credits
- Left image - Optical: ESO/VLT; Close-up - X-ray: NASA/CXC/Curtin University/R.Soria et al., Optical: NASA/STScI/Middlebury College/F.Winkler et al.
- Release Date
- 2012-04-30
- Lightyears
- 15,000,000
- Redshift
- 15,000,000
- Reference Url
- http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2012/m83/
- Type
- Collage
- Image Quality
- Good
- Distance Notes
- Facility
- ESO, ESO, ESO, Hubble, Hubble, Chandra
- Instrument
- WFI, WFI, WFI, WFC3, WFC3, ACIS
- Color Assignment
- Red, Green, Blue, Yellow, Blue, Magenta
- Band
- Optical, Optical, Optical, Optical, Optical, X-ray
- Bandpass
- R-band, V-band, B-band, H-alpha, U-band, X-ray
- Central Wavelength
- 675, 540, 456, 657, 336, 0.8267
- Start Time
- Integration Time
- Dataset ID
- Notes
- Coordinate Frame
- ICRS
- Equinox
- J2000
- Reference Value
- 204.2480301, -29.8696631
- Reference Dimension
- Reference Pixel
- Scale
- Rotation
- Coordinate System Projection:
- Quality
- Position
- FITS Header
- Notes
- 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
- m83.tif
- Resource URL
- http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2012/m83/m83.tif
- Related Resources
- Metadata Date
- 2012-04-30T14:03:03-04:00
- Metadata Version
- 1.2
Detailed color mapping information coming soon...
