A Black Hole in Medusa’s Hair: A galaxy lies about 110 million light years away.
Description: This image of NGC 4194 is a composite of X-rays from Chandra (blue) and optical light data from Hubble (orange). Located above the center of the galaxy, the "hair" of the Medusa is a tidal tail formed by a collision between galaxies. The bright X-ray source found on the left side of Medusa’s hair is a black hole. A recent study of the Medusa galaxy and nine other galaxies measured the correlation between the formation of stars and the production of X-ray binaries. These X-ray binaries appear as the bright blue point-like sources in this image of Medusa.
Creator/Photographer: Chandra X-ray Observatory
NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, which was launched and deployed by Space Shuttle Columbia on July 23, 1999, is the most sophisticated X-ray observatory built to date. The mirrors on Chandra are the largest, most precisely shaped and aligned, and smoothest mirrors ever constructed. Chandra is helping scientists better understand the hot, turbulent regions of space and answer fundamental questions about origin, evolution, and destiny of the Universe. The images Chandra makes are twenty-five times sharper than the best previous X-ray telescope. NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., manages the Chandra program for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory controls Chandra science and flight operations from the Chandra X-ray Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Medium: Chandra telescope x-ray
Date: 2009
Persistent URL: chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2009/medusa/
Repository: Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory
Gift line: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Univ of Iowa/P.Kaaret et al.; Optical: NASA/ESA/STScI/Univ of Iowa/P.Kaaret et al.
Accession number: medusa
To learn more about Chandra X-ray Observatory images, visit:
blog.photography.si.edu/2009/05/11/seeing-the-invisible/
blog.photography.si.edu/2009/06/01/seeing-the-invisible-p…
Fantastic!
amazing!!!
Black holes make me crazy. If I start thinking abut space too much, I enter this terrible state of despair because I cannot know the answers…
This is a fabulous photo.
It is possible to go mad)))
Incrivel……aparecem outras galáxias na foto……assim não tem como imaginar o espaço físico do entorno desta chamada Medusa…….muito menos se compararmos com o volume vazio onde encontramo-nos, ou seja o Sistema Solar…….
Hi, I’m an admin for a group called NASA – Public Domain, and we’d love to have this added to the group!
Glass Countertops says:
i agree with you giljacobus