Topsy Turvy Black Holes
nustar_nustar131126a November 26th, 2013
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
The magenta spots in this image show two black holes in the spiral galaxy called NGC 1313, or the Topsy Turvy galaxy. Both black holes belong to a class called ultraluminous X-ray sources, or ULXs. The magenta X-ray data come from NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescopic Array, and are overlaid on a visible image from the Digitized Sky Survey.
ULXs consist of black holes actively accreting, or feeding, off material drawn in from a partner star. Astronomers are trying to figure out why ULXs shine so brightly with X-rays.
NuSTAR's new high-energy X-ray data on NGC 1313 helped narrow down the masses of the black holes in the ULXs: the black hole closer to the center of the galaxy is about 70 to 100 times that of our sun. The other black hole is probably smaller, about 30 solar masses.
Provider: Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array
Image Source: https://nustar.caltech.edu/image/nustar131126a
Curator: NuSTAR: Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, Pasadena, CA
Image Use Policy: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/imagepolicy/
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Image Details
Distance
Position Details
Color Mapping
- ID
- nustar131126a
- Subject Category
- C.5.1.1 C.5.1.2
- Subject Name
- Topsy Turvy Galaxy, NGC 1313
- Credits
- NASA/JPL-Caltech
- Release Date
- 2013-11-26
- Lightyears
- 12,900,000
- Redshift
- 0.001568
- Reference Url
- https://nustar.caltech.edu/image/nustar131126a
- Type
- Observation
- Image Quality
- Good
- Distance Notes
- Facility
- NuSTAR, DSS, DSS
- Instrument
- Color Assignment
- Magenta, Cyan, Orange
- Band
- X-ray, Optical, Optical
- Bandpass
- -, B-band, R-band
- Central Wavelength
- 0.07749, 440, 700
- Start Time
- Integration Time
- Dataset ID
- Notes
- Coordinate Frame
- ICRS
- Equinox
- 2000.0
- Reference Value
- 49.56688000000, -66.49825000000
- Reference Dimension
- 1400.00, 1400.00
- Reference Pixel
- 701.66437924535, 680.94769284682
- Scale
- -0.00037451613, 0.00037451613
- Rotation
- -5.65184162117
- Coordinate System Projection:
- TAN
- Quality
- Full
- FITS Header
- Notes
- World Coordinate System resolved using PinpointWCS 0.9.2 revision 218+ by the Chandra X-ray Center
- Creator (Curator)
- NuSTAR: Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array
- URL
- http://www.nustar.caltech.edu
- Name
- Telephone
- Address
- City
- Pasadena
- State/Province
- CA
- Postal Code
- Country
- Rights
- http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/imagepolicy/
- Publisher
- Publisher ID
- nustar
- Resource ID
- Resource URL
- https://nustar.caltech.edu/system/avm_image_sqls/binaries/9/original/NGC1313.tif
- Related Resources
- Metadata Date
- 2018-06-21T00:32:29Z
- Metadata Version
- 1.2
Detailed color mapping information coming soon...
