NASA'S Chandra Catches Our Galaxy's Giant Black Hole Rejecting Food
chandra_547 August 29th, 2013
Credit: X-ray: NASA/UMass/D.Wang et al., IR: NASA/STScI
One of the biggest observing campaigns ever performed by Chandra has provided new understanding into why gas near the giant black hole at the center of the Milky Way is extraordinarily faint in X-rays. The large image contains X-rays from Chandra (blue) and infrared emission from the Hubble (red and yellow). The inset shows a close-up of Sgr A* in X-rays only, covering a region half a light year wide. The diffuse X-ray emission is from hot gas captured by the black hole and being pulled inwards. The new results indicate that less than 1% of the material that is initially within the black hole's gravitational grasp reaches the event horizon, or, point of no return.
Provider: Chandra X-ray Observatory
Image Source: http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2013/sgra_gas/
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
- 547
- Subject Category
- B.3.1.10 B.5.4.6
- Subject Name
- Sagittarius A*
- Credits
- X-ray: NASA/UMass/D.Wang et al., IR: NASA/STScI
- Release Date
- 2013-08-29
- Lightyears
- 26,000
- Redshift
- 26,000
- Reference Url
- http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2013/sgra_gas/
- Type
- Observation
- Image Quality
- Good
- Distance Notes
- Facility
- Chandra, HST, HST
- Instrument
- ACIS, WFC3, NICMOS
- Color Assignment
- Blue, Yellow, Magenta
- Band
- X-ray, Infrared, Infrared
- Bandpass
- X-ray, -, Pa-alpha
- Central Wavelength
- 0.8267, 1390, 1875
- Start Time
- Integration Time
- Dataset ID
- Notes
- Coordinate Frame
- ICRS
- Equinox
- J2000
- Reference Value
- 266.4167078, -29.0077984
- Reference Dimension
- 3600.0, 3600.0
- Reference Pixel
- 1801.0, 1801.0
- Scale
- 4.83713e-06, 4.8371324e-06
- Rotation
- 0.13
- Coordinate System Projection:
- TAN
- Quality
- Full
- FITS Header
- Notes
- WCS retrieved using CXCs PinpointWCS
- 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
- sgra_gas_wide.tif
- Resource URL
- http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2013/sgra_gas/sgra_gas_wide.tif
- Related Resources
- Metadata Date
- 2013-08-30T12:24:03-04:00
- Metadata Version
- 1.2
Detailed color mapping information coming soon...
