X For Andromeda
Credit & Copyright: S. Murray,
M. Garcia,
et al.,
(CfA)
SAO,
CXO,
NASA
Explanation:
A big beautiful spiral galaxy 2 million light-years away,
Andromeda (M31)
has long been touted as an analog to the Milky Way,
a distant mirror of our own galaxy.
The popular 1960s British sci-fi series,
A For Andromeda,
even postulated that it was home to another technological civilization
that
communicated
with us.
Using the newly unleashed observing power of the orbiting
Chandra X-ray telescope,
astronomers have now imaged the
center of our near-twin
island universe, finding evidence
for an object so bizarre it would have impressed many
60s science fiction writers (and readers).
Like the Milky Way,
Andromeda's galactic center appears to
harbor an X-ray source characteristic of
a black hole of a million or more solar masses.
Seen above,
the false-color X-ray picture shows a number of
X-ray sources, likely
X-ray binary stars, within
Andromeda's central region as yellowish dots.
The blue source located right at the galaxy's center is coincident
with the position of the suspected massive black hole.
While
the X-rays are produced as material falls into the
black hole and heats up, estimates from the X-ray data show Andromeda's
central source to be surprisingly cool - only a million
degrees or so compared to the tens of millions of degrees
indicated for Andromeda's
X-ray binaries.
Authors & editors:
Robert Nemiroff
(MTU) &
Jerry Bonnell
(USRA)
NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings,
and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris.
Specific
rights apply.
A service of:
LHEA at
NASA /
GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
