Chandra X-ray image of the
innermost 10 light years at the center of our
galaxy. The image has been smoothed to bring out
the X-ray emission from an extended cloud of hot gas
surrounding the supermassive black-hole candidate
Sagittarius A* (larger white dot at the very center of
the image- a little to the left and above the smallest
white dot). This gas glows in X-ray light because it
has been heated to a temperature of millions of degrees
by shock waves produced by supernova explosions and
perhaps by colliding winds from young massive
stars.
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 USA Phone: 617.496.7941 Fax: 617.495.7356
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Chandra X-ray Center, Operated for NASA by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory This site was developed with funding from NASA under Contract NAS8-03060.
