Astronomy Picture of the Day
    


The Swirling Center of NGC 4261
<< Yesterday 5.12.1995 Tomorrow >>
The Swirling Center of NGC 4261
Credit & Copyright: NASA, HST, H. Ford and L. Ferrarese, (Johns Hopkins), W. Jaffe, (Leiden)
Explanation: What evil lurks in the hearts of galaxies? The above picture by the Hubble Space Telescope of the center of the nearby galaxy NGC 4261 tells us one dramatic tale. Here gas and dust are seen swirling near this elliptical galaxy's center 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.

January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December
 < December 1995  >
Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa Su




123
45678910
11121314151617
18192021222324
25262728293031
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.

Based on Astronomy Picture Of the Day

Publications with keywords: NGC 4261
Publications with words: NGC 4261