December 11, 2024
You are a way for the cosmos to know itself, Carl Sagan once said. On your birthday, the cosmos got to know itself a little better.
The Shells and Jets of Galaxy Centaurus A
Birthday · December 11, 2024
A little universe, just for you
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APOD published December 11, 2024. Full image credits are on the original APOD entry below. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
What's the closest active galaxy to planet Earth? That would be Centaurus A, cataloged as NGC 5128, which is only 12 million light-years distant. Forged in a collision of two otherwise normal galaxies, Centaurus A shows several distinctive features including a dark dust lane across its center, outer shells of stars and gas, and jets of particles shooting out from a supermassive black hole at its center. The featured image captures all of these in a composite series of visible light images totaling over 310 hours captured over the past 10 years with a homebuilt telescope operating in Auckland, New Zealand. The brightness of Cen A's center from low-energy radio waves to high-energy gamma rays underlies its designation as an active galaxy. Astrophysicists: Browse 3,500+ codes in the Astrophysics Source Code Library