Elliptical Galaxy M84: 'H' is for Hot & Huge | NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory

Elliptical Galaxy M84: 'H' is for Hot & Huge | NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory

With a single letter seemingly etched in the X-ray glow around it, a giant black hole at the center of a massive elliptical galaxy is making a mark on its surroundings.

This “H”-shaped structure is found in a detailed new X-ray map of the multimillion-degree gas around the galaxy Messier 84, or M84 for short.

As gas is captured by the gravitational force of the black hole, some of it will fall into the abyss, never to be seen again. Some of the gas, however, avoids this fate and instead gets blasted away from the black hole in the form of jets of particles. These jets can push out holes, or cavities, in the hot gas surrounding the black hole. Given the orientation of the jets to Earth and the profile of the hot gas, the cavities form what appears to resemble the letter “H”.

Astronomers used NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory to make a map of the hot gas in and around M84. In fact, Chandra was able see down to only about 100 light-years away from the black hole in the center of the galaxy. This gas radiates at temperatures in the tens of millions of degrees. The huge letter “H” is about 40,000 light-years tall, or about half the width of the Milky Way. The radio image from the National Science Foundation’s Very Large Array, or VLA, in New Mexico reveals jets streaking away from the black hole.

Credit: NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory

Duration: 3 minutes

Release Date: May 4, 2023

#NASA #Space #Astronomy #Science #Galaxy #Messier84 #M84 #EllipticalGalaxy #BlackHole #Constellation #Cosmos #Universe #NASAChandra #ChandraObservatory #Xray #SpaceTelescope #MSFC #UnitedStates#STEM #Education #HD #Video