Chandra Release - September 30, 2015

Visual Description: Phoenix Cluster

This is an X-ray image of a galaxy cluster called Phoenix Cluster (also known as SPT-CLJ2344-4243). The dominant colors in the image are shades of dark to bright blue, on a black background, with tiny orange specks.  The structure of the galaxy cluster is shaped like a cloudy, but disrupted blue sphere or circle, with two large outer holes or cavities at 11 and 8 o'clock. There are also two much smaller, fainter inner cavities at 1 o'clock and 7 o'clock. X-ray data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory is colored in blue in this image, while optical data from the Hubble Space Telescope is red, green, and blue.  Astronomers think that the X-ray cavities were carved out of the surrounding gas by powerful jets of high-energy particles emanating from near a supermassive black hole in the central galaxy of the cluster. As matter swirls toward a black hole, an enormous amount of gravitational energy is released.