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Galactic Center: The innermost 10 light years at the center of our galaxy. Caption: The image has been smoothed to bring out the X-ray emission from an extended cloud of hot gas surrounding the supermassive black-hole candidate Sagittarius A* (larger white dot at the very center of the image- a little to the left and above the smallest white dot). This gas glows in X-ray light because it has been heated to a temperature of millions of degrees by shock waves produced by supernova explosions and perhaps by colliding winds from young massive stars. Scale: Image is 1.3 arcmin on a side. Chandra X-ray Observatory ACIS Image |