Chandra Deep Field
Explanation:
Officially the
Chandra
Deep Field - South, this picture represents the deepest ever
x-ray image of the Universe.
One million seconds of accumulated exposure time with the orbiting
Chandra X-ray Observatory went in to its making.
Concentrating on a single, otherwise unremarkable patch
of sky in the constellation
Fornax,
this x-ray image
corresponds to the
visible light
Hubble Deep Field - South
released in 1998.
Chandra's view, color coded with low energies in red, medium in green,
and high-energy x-rays in blue, shows many faint sources of relatively
high-energy x-rays.
These are likely active galaxies feeding supermassive central
black holes
and large
clusters of galaxies
at distances of up to 12 billion light-years.
The stunning picture supports
astronomers' ideas
of a youthful
universe in which massive black holes
were much more dominant than at present.
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.
