Chandra Release - May 25, 2010

Visual Description: M31

This zoomed-in image of the Andromeda Galaxy (M31) features a supermassive black hole. The dominant colors in this astronomical image are blue and white. The shape of the galaxy is a spiral with a bright spot in the center, like a giant whirlpool in the sky. The large image shows the optical view of M31, with the Digitized Sky Survey. An inset to the upper right shows 2 stacked Chandra X-ray Observatory images of a small region in the center of Andromeda. The insets look like a few speckled blue blobs arranged like buttons on a shirt. The image on the left shows the sum of 23 images taken before January 2006 and the image on the right shows the sum of 17 images taken after January 2006. Before 2006, three X-ray sources are clearly visible in the Chandra image, including one faint source close to the center of the image. After 2006, a fourth source, called M31*, appears just below and to the right of the central source, produced by material falling onto the supermassive black hole in M31.