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Animations & Video
The Milky Way
 |  | Virtual Voyage through the Milky Way: Local Group to Galactic Center
Zoom in from the Local Group to the Galactic Center & view the Chandra mosaic of the central region of our Galaxy. |
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Images of Light Echo at Galactic Center
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This sequence shows the location of the light echo at the Galactic Center by placing it in context with other Chandra observations of the region. The light echo is produced when X-rays from the Milky Way's giant black hole bounce off surrounding gas clouds. The light echo is found approximately 50 light years away from Sagittarius A* (or Sgr A*, for short), the supermassive black hole in the Galactic Center.
[Runtime: 0:25]
(NASA/CXC)
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Variability in Chandra Images of Light Echo
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The first image shows Chandra data of the middle of the Milky Way, with the position of Sgr A* labeled. The view then shows how the X-ray emission in the gas clouds change in shape and brightness between the three different observations in 2002, 2004 and 2005. This behavior agrees with theoretical predictions for a light echo produced by Sgr A* and helps rule out other interpretations.
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(NASA/CXC/Caltech/M.Muno et al.)
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Animation of Stars Forming Around Black Hole
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This animation shows a disk of red and yellow gas around a supermassive black hole. As the view pulls back, the formation of stars in the outer regions of the disk is seen. These massive stars form when the gas becomes unstable, despite the black hole's enormous gravitational influence, and collapses inwards.
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(NASA/CXC/A.Hobart)
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Scenario Dismissed by Chandra Results
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This sequence of artist's renderings shows the scenario ruled out by the latest Chandra results. In this model, a cluster with both low (red) and high (blue) mass stars is drawn toward the black hole. Eventually, the strong gravitational forces would rip the cluster apart, sending its constituent stars into orbit around the black hole.
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(Illustrations: NASA/CXC/M.Weiss)
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Sequence Showing Evidence of Black Hole Swarm in Context
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The first image in this sequence is Chandra's 900- by 400-light year mosaic of the Milky Way's center. Next, the view zooms into a smaller region where Chandra has found some 2,000 individual X-ray sources. Finally, Chandra's view of the area immediately surrounding Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), the Milky Way's supermassive black hole, is shown. As part of a long-term monitoring program, Chandra found several variable X-ray sources. This variability suggests these sources are in systems containing their own stellar-sized black holes.
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(Galactic Center Mosaic: NASA/UMass/D.Wang et al.; Sagittarius A*: NASA/CXC/MIT/F.K.Baganoff et al.; Galactic Center X-ray Binaries: NASA/CXC/UCLA/M.Muno et al.)
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Time-lapse Movie of Galactic Center X-ray Binaries
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This sequence of 5 images is part of an ongoing Chandra program that monitors a region around the Milky Way's supermassive black hole, Sgr A*. Four bright, variable X-ray sources were discovered within 3 light years of Sgr A*. The variability is indicative of an X-ray binary system where a black hole or neutron star is pulling matter from a nearby companion star. Such a high concentration of X-ray binaries in this region is strong circumstantial evidence that a dense swarm of 10,000 or more stellar-mass black holes and neutron stars has formed around Sgr A*. The swarm likely formed as stellar-mass black holes, and to a lesser extent, neutron stars, gradually sank toward the center of the Galaxy over the course of several billion years.
[Runtime: 1:02]
(NASA/CXC/UCLA/M.Muno et al.)
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Black Hole Animation
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This animation illustrates the activity surrounding a black hole. While the matter that has passed the black hole's "event horizon" can't be seen, material swirling outside this threshold is accelerated to millions of degrees and radiates in X-rays. At the end of the animation, the black hole is shown shrouded in a cloud of gas and dust, obscuring it from most angles at wavelengths other than the X-rays picked up by the Chandra X-ray Observatory.
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(NASA/CXC/A.Hobart)
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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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(NASA/CXC)
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DB01-42 in context of the Milky Way Center
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This series of images puts the cluster known as DB01-42 in context with Chandra's 900- by 400-light year mosaic of the Galactic Center. The view then transitions to radio emission from a smaller region that includes DB01-42, before showing infrared data of the same area, and ending with Chandra's X-ray close-up. Chandra's X-ray data have helped astronomers identify DB01-42 as a member of the Galactic Center. It is about 26,000 light years away from Earth.
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(X-ray: NASA/CXC/Northwestern U./C.Law & F.Yusef-Zadeh; Infrared: 2MASS/UMass/IPAC-Caltech/NASA/NSF; Radio: NRAO/AUI/NSF/F.Zadeh et al.)
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Into the Milky Way: Quintuplet Cluster
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This sequence begins with Chandra's X-ray view of a 900 by 400 light year swath of the center of the Milky Way. It then zooms into a smaller region where large filamentary structures are seen in radio waves. The view moves in even closer to show the Quintuplet star cluster. Named for its five brightest stars at infrared wavelengths, the Quintuplet is known to be home to hundreds of stars. Several of these are very massive stars that are rapidly losing gas from their surfaces in high-speed stellar winds. Collisions from these winds are what astronomers believe to be the source for the point-like concentrations seen in the Chandra image.
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(X-ray: NASA/CXC/NWU/C.Law & F.Zadeh; IR: NASA/ESO/STScI/D.Figer et al.; Radio: NRAO/AUI/NSF/F.Zadeh et al.)
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Find more information on the Milky Way in the field guide.
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