Chandra's Many Views of the Center of
the Milky Way
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This sequence shows how astronomers are using Chandra to help probe the mysterious region at the center of the Milky Way. The first image is a 900- by 400-light-year mosaic in X-rays taken by Chandra. The view then zooms into a smaller region that encompasses the latest Chandra discovery of puzzling, extremely hot and diffuse emission. From there, the sequence shows two even smaller fields of view of the region surrounding the Milky Way's supermassive black hole, known as Sgr A*. The final element is an artist's conception of Sgr A* itself and its accretion disk as it undergoes a flare.
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Animation: NASA/CXC

Field Guide: The Milky Way