Here is a terrific image of a black hole at the center of Centaurus A, a nearby galaxy in the constellation of Centaurus, taken by the Chandra X-ray Observatory. According to the
Chandra's website:
Jets and lobes powered by the central black hole in
this nearby galaxy are shown by submillimeter data (colored orange) from
the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX) telescope in Chile and X-ray data
(colored blue) from the Chandra X-ray Observatory. Visible light data from
the Wide Field Imager on the Max-Planck/ESO 2.2 m telescope, also located
in Chile, shows the dust lane in the galaxy and background stars. The
X-ray jet in the upper left extends for about 13,000 light years away from
the black hole. The APEX data shows that material in the jet is travelling
at about half the speed of light.
More from the
website concerning Chandra, first launched on July 23, 1999:
NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory is a telescope specially designed to
detect X-ray emission from very hot regions of the Universe such as
exploded stars, clusters of galaxies, and matter around black holes.
Because X-rays are absorbed by Earth's atmosphere, Chandra must orbit
above it, up to an altitude of 139,000 km (86,500 mi) in space. The
Smithsonian's Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, MA, hosts the
Chandra X-ray Center which operates the satellite, processes the data,
and distributes it to scientists around the world for analysis. The
Center maintains an extensive public web site about the science results
and an education program.
