Black hole flushed from Centaurus A

Recent astronomers have taken a new look at the Centaurus A galaxy (NGC 5128) when the rays and lobes emanating from the central black hole are recorded by wavelengths of light below the first millimeter.

The new data from the APEX telescope (Atacama Pathfinder Experiment), run by ESO in Chile, is combined with X-ray wavelengths and visible light, creating this shocking new image.

Centaurus A is our closest giant galaxy, located about 13 million light-years away in the southern constellation Centaurus. It is an elliptical porch, now combined with another companion spiral galaxy that forms a dense post-forming region and makes it one of the most spectacular objects in the sky. Centaurus A dominates a central region that emits strong luminous light as a result of the presence of a supermassive black hole. This black hole is also the source of radium and X-rays.

The color image of Centaurus A reveals the lobes and rays emanating from the galaxy's central black hole. This is a composite image obtained by 3 tools operating at different wavelengths. Data below millimeter 870 microns obtained from LABOCA on APEX are orange-yellow. X-ray data brought back by Chandra X-ray observatory is green. Visible light data were obtained from a large market camera (WFI) on a 2.2 m MPG / ESO telescope located in La Silla, Chile showing stars as the background and dusty lines forming the galaxy close to true color. (Photo: ESO / WFI (Optical); MPIfR / ESO / APEX / A.Weiss et al. (Under millimeter); NASA / CXC / CfA / R.Kraft et al. (Tia X) JP)

On the picture we can see the dust belt around the giant galaxy, fast moving radio waves escaping from the center of the galaxy. This is the sign of the giant black hole at the heart of Centaurus A. Under the light of a wavelength less than a millimeter, we not only see the heat from the center of this disk, but also the source. radio waves in the center - radio lobes from the inside are north and south of the disc.

The determination of this broadcasting process (occurs when electrons move rapidly twisting around magnetic lines) reveals that matter in the rays is moving at approximately half the speed of light. For the process of emitting X-rays, we see the rays coming from the center of Centaurus A towards the lower right part of the galaxy.The heat generated when the lobes expand, collide with the surrounding air zone to create a shock wave.

The large APEX Bolometer (LABOCA) built by the Radio-Astronomical Institute Max-Planck ((MPIfR) was placed on APEX - a sub-millimeter telescope with a diameter of 12 meters placed on a 5000-meter Chanjnantor plateau at the Atacama (Chile) APEX is a combination of MPIfR, observatory Onsala Space and ESO, a prototype antenna based on the prototype built for the next-generation Atacama Large Millimeter / submillimeter Array (ALMA) project. ESO is responsible for running APEX observatory at Chajnantor.

Refer:
Weiss et al.LABOCA observations of nearby, active galaxies.Astronomy and Astrophysics, 2008;490 (1): 77 DOI: 10.1051 / 0004-6361: 200809909