The Heart Of NGC 4261
Explanation:
What evil lurks in the hearts of galaxies?
This Hubble Space Telescope picture
of the center of the nearby
elliptical galaxy
NGC 4261 tells one
dramatic
tale.
The gas and dust in this disk are swirling into what is almost
certainly a massive
black hole.
The disk is probably what remains of a
smaller galaxy that fell in hundreds of millions of years ago.
Collisions
like this may be a common way of creating such active galactic nuclei as
quasars.
Strangely, the center of this fiery whirlpool is offset from the
exact center of the galaxy - for a reason that for now remains an
astronomical mystery.
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.
