Chandra Release - July 22, 2024

Visual Description: Centaurus A

In this composite image, a supermassive black hole at the center of the Centaurus A galaxy shoots an enormous jet of particles into a star-packed sky. Here, Centaurus A resembles an inky purple cloud sitting atop a translucent red cloud. At the heart of the combined cloud structure is the black hole, a brilliant white dot that lights the clouds from within. The jet emerges from this dot, a speckled white and purple beam shooting toward our upper left. Surrounding the entire galaxy is a faint translucent blue bubble shape, which is most pronounced at our lower right. This bubble was created by the jets from the black hole. Both the jets and the bubble are detected by Chandra.