Centaurus A is located 13 million light-years away in the constellation of Centaurus, and represents the fifth brightest galaxy in the sky.
Centaurus A is a giant elliptical galaxy 13 million light-years away in the constellation of Centaurus.
Also known as NGC 5128, LEDA 46957, ESO 270-9, and Caldwell 7, it is one of the brightest objects in the southern hemisphere night sky.
Centaurus A was discovered on April 29, 1826 by the Scottish astronomer James Dunlop.
Astronomers theorize that what was originally an elliptical galaxy collided with a relatively smaller spiral galaxy, giving it the peculiar shape we see now.
In the center of Centaurus A lies an actively feeding supermassive black hole with a mass of 55 million solar masses.
As the black hole feeds on in-falling gas, it ejects material at near light-speed.
Centaurus A has been studied extensively since the launch of NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory in 1999.
With NASA’s Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE), which launched in 2021, astronomers can understand the mysteries of this galaxy in a new way.
“In the center of this galaxy is a supermassive black hole feeding off the gas and dust encircling it, and large jets of high-energy particles and other material spewing out,” NASA astronomers said in a statement.
“The jet shown at the upper left of the image extends for about 13,000 light-years away from the black hole.”
“Also visible is a dust lane, wrapping around the middle of the galaxy, which may have resulted from a collision with a smaller galaxy millions of years ago.”
IXPE is specialized to look at a property of X-ray light called polarization, which relates to the organization of electromagnetic waves.
This specialized measurement is helping astronomers study how particles become accelerated to high energies and speeds — nearly the speed of light — at extreme cosmic objects like this one.
At Centaurus A, the astronomers using IXPE seek to understand what causes the X-ray…
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