Chandra Release - January 5, 2015

Visual Description: Sagittarius A*

 A Chandra X-ray Observatory image around the Sagittarius A* supermassive black hole, located in the center of the Milky Way galaxy, is shown. The image is dominated by vibrant red and blue hues, with a large amount of celestial objects visible. At the center of the image, there is a bright, lumpy object showing the intense X-ray radiation emanating from the Sgr A* black hole. In the surrounding area, there are a couple smaller lumps layered throughout the image, feathering out to a large almost butterfly shape filling much of the screen. The image appears textured, like dozens of blue and orange glow worms are paused in their wriggling.  An inset box at middle right contains an X-ray movie of the region close to Sgr A* and shows the giant flare, along with much steadier X-ray emission from a nearby magnetar.  The X-ray emission in the timelapse is colored in blue. A magnetar is a neutron star with a strong magnetic field. A little more than a year later, astronomers saw another flare from Sgr A* that was 200 times brighter than its normal state in October 2014.