Chandra Release - November 20, 2013

Visual Description: Sagittarius A*

This is an X-ray and radio image featuring supermassive black hole Sagittarius A* in the center of the Milky Way galaxy.  The image has a purple and blue color scheme, with a handful of bright sources scattered around the image.  The area around Sagittarius A* appears as a bright white spot near the center.   The surrounding shape resembles that of two bent arms stretching outwards towards the left edge of the image.   The structure can be compared to a partial blue-white pinwheel on a textured purple background.  This composite image features X-rays from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory (purple) and radio data from the VLA (blue). There is a faint suspected jet at 8 o’clock. A shock front is also visible at the lower blue arm. As the jet fires away from Sgr A*, it travels through space until it hits gas several light years away. (The region around the Milky Way's black hole has many clumps of gas and dust.) Once the jet hits, it triggers the formation of a shock front. This interaction also accelerates electrons, generating X-rays as the electrons stream down the path of the jet, past the shock front.