Chandra Release - January 5, 2005

Visual Description: MS 0735.6+7421

A Chandra X-ray Observatory image of a cluster of galaxies, MS 0735.6+7421, is the subject. The image has a bright white dot in the center with dim pink splotchy shape around it, surrounded by hot red gas in a curved “H” shape. The red shape stands out prominently against the black background. This Chandra image shows two vast cavities (making up the hollows of the H shape). Each cavity, 600,000 light years in diameter, is in the hot, X-ray emitting gas that pervades the galaxy cluster MS 0735.6+7421 (MS 0735 for short). Although the cavities contain very little hot gas, they are filled with a two-sided, elongated, magnetized bubble of extremely high-energy electrons that emit radio waves.  The cavities appear on opposite sides of a large galaxy at the center of the cluster, which indicates that a gigantic eruption produced by the galaxy's supermassive black hole created the structures. The magnitude of the eruption suggests that as a large amount of gas swirled rapidly toward the central black hole, it generated intense electromagnetic fields that ejected a fraction of the gas in the form of powerful jets of high-energy particles.