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Explanation: What would it look like to travel to the center of an active galaxy? Most galactic centers are thought to house black holes millions of times more massive than our Sun. The spaces surrounding these supermassive black holes may be far from dormant, however, flickering in many colors and earning the entire object class the title of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN). Pictured above is a video illustrating how an active galactic nucleus may appear up close. AGN typically sport massive accretion disks feeding the central black hole, as well as powerful jets shooting electrically charged matter far into the surrounding universe. Clouds of gas and dust seen orbiting the central black holes have recently been found to be so dense that they intermittently eclipse even penetrating x-rays from reaching us. These X-ray dimming events, as short as hours but as long as years, were detected in an analysis encompassing over a decade of data taken by the NASA's orbiting Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE).
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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: Galactic Center
Publications with words: Galactic Center
See also:
- APOD: 2024 April 1 Á Swirling Magnetic Field around Our Galaxys Central Black Hole
- Milky Way Rising
- APOD: 2023 April 3 Á The Galactic Center Radio Arc
- The Galactic Center in Radio from MeerKAT
- Road to the Galactic Center
- The Galactic Center in Stars, Gas, and Magnetism
- The Galactic Center in Infrared