Chandra Release - March 3, 2010

Visual Description: NGC 1068

This is a composite image of NGC 1068, one of the nearest and brightest galaxies containing a rapidly growing supermassive black hole.  The galaxy is shown in bright green and orange with a little blue at the center. Compared to familiar everyday objects, the image of NGC 1068 resembles a colorful, swirling vortex with a bright, glowing center.  The glowing center is the area arouond a supermassive black hole (SMBH) at the center of the galaxy. X-ray data from the Chandra X-ray Observatory are shown in red, optical data from the Hubble Space Telescope in green and radio data from the Very Large Array in blue. The spiral structure of NGC 1068 is shown in the X-ray and optical data, and a jet powered by the central supermassive black hole is shown by the radio data. Chandra data show that a strong wind is being driven away from the center of NGC 1068 at a rate of about a million miles per hour.