Chandra Release - December 13, 2018

Visual Description: Abell 2597

This image showcases a galaxy cluster named Abell 2597. It has a rich blue, purple and pale yellow color scheme, with the purple-blues appearing as the dominant color in the image. In the center of the image a blurry yellow shape that looks slightly like a horse sitting stands out due to its contrast against the darker background. A fuzzy purple pole goes through the back part of the "horse" almost like on a carousel. Surround that are swirls and clouds of the rich blue-purple, resembling clumps of scattered vortexes. Abell 2597 shows clear evidence for the simultaneous inward and outward flow of gas being driven by a supermassive black hole. Cold gas falls toward the central black hole, like water entering the pump of a fountain. Some of this infalling gas (seen in the image as ALMA data in yellow) eventually reaches the vicinity of the black hole, where the black hole's gravity causes the gas to swirl around with ever-increasing speeds, and the gas is heated to temperatures of millions of degrees. This swirling motion also creates strong electromagnetic forces that launch high-velocity jets of particles that shoot out of the galaxy. These jets push away huge amounts of hot gas detected by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory (colored purple) surrounding the black hole, creating enormous cavities that expand away from the center of the cluster. The expanding cavities also lift up clumps of warm and cold gas and carry them away from the black hole, as observed in the MUSE/VLT data (magenta).