Chandra Release - November 26, 2019

Visual Description: Positive Feedback Black Hole

An X-ray, optical and radio image of the galaxy SDSS J1030+0542 and its surrounding area is displayed, featuring bright red, with large blue and yellow dots against a dark background. The galaxy and area around it has an irregular shape, appearing somewhat distorted or elongated, almost like viewing a red bat in flight from far away. A central bright yellow and white foreground source is in the middle of the image with the main central galaxy tucked just to its right side. There is a faint blue jet extending out from that galaxy on each side. In this composite image, X-rays from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory (colored red) have been combined with radio emission detected by the NSF's Karl Jansky Very Large Array, or VLA, (blue), and an optical image from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope (yellow). As hot gas swirls around the black hole, it emits large amounts of X-rays that Chandra detects. The black hole is also the source of radio-wave emission from a jet of high-energy particles - previously detected by scientists with the VLA - that stretches about a million light years.