Centaurus A X-Rays from an Active Galaxy

Centaurus A X-Rays from an Active Galaxy



Its core hiddenfrom optical view by a thick lane of dust, the giant elliptica galaxyCentaurus A was among the first objectsobserved by the orbiting Chandra X-ray Observatory.Astronomers were not disappointed, as Centaurus A'sappearance in x-rays makes its classification as a active galaxy easy to appreciate.Perhaps the most striking feature o thisChandra false-color x-ray viewis the jet, 30,000 light-years long.Blasting toward the upper left corner of the picture the jetseems to arise from the galaxy's bright central x-ray source --suspected of harboring a black hole with a million or so timesthe mass of the Sun Centaurus Ais also seen to be teeming with otherindividual x-ray sources and a pervasive, diffus x-ray glow.Most of these individual sources are likely to be neutron starsor solar mass black holes accreting material from their lessexotic binary companion stars.The diffuse high-energy glowrepresents gas throughout the galaxyheated to temperatures of million of degrees C.At 11 million light-years distant in the constellatio Centaurus,Centaurus A (NGC 5128) is the closes active galaxy.