Chandra Release - October 25, 1999

Visual Description: Centaurus A

The X-ray image of the Centaurus A shows a bright, small circular object, which resembles an orange firecracker with a jet of light shooting off to the upper right. This central structure is surrounded by a halo of smaller orange dots on a black background, reminiscent of orange fireflies twinkling in the night sky. The Chandra X-ray Observatory image of Centaurus A shows a bright source in the nucleus of the galaxy, which is a supermassive black hole. The bright jet extending out from the nucleus to the upper left is due to explosive or highly energetic activity around the black hole which ejects matter at high speeds from the vicinity of the black hole. There is also a faint "counter jet" extending to the lower right. This jet is probably pointing away from us. Numerous point-like sources of X rays are also apparent. These are probably due to neutron stars or black holes that are accreting matter from nearby companion stars.