Chandra Release - April 19, 2017

Visual Description: NGC 4696

The X-ray, optical and radio image of the Centaurus galaxy cluster, or NGC 4696, features a vibrant red and blue upside down snail shape in the center, surrounded by tiny dots of light in yellow. At the center of the Centaurus galaxy cluster is a large elliptical galaxy. Deeper still, there is a supermassive black hole buried within the core of this galaxy. In some ways, this black hole resembles a beating heart that pumps blood outward into the body via the arteries. Likewise, a black hole can inject material and energy into its host galaxy and beyond. This composite image contains X-ray data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory (colored in red) that reveals the hot gas in the cluster, and radio data from the NSF's Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (blue) that shows high-energy particles produced by the black hole-powered jets. Visible light data from the Hubble Space Telescope (green) show galaxies in the cluster as well as galaxies and stars outside the cluster.