June 19, 2000
On this day, the universe repeated one of its rarest tricks: it arranged dust, light, memory, and possibility into a person no equation...
The Long Jet of Pictor A
Birthday · June 19, 2000
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APOD published June 19, 2000. Full image credits are on the original APOD entry below. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
A jet stretching nearly a million light years has been imaged emanating from galaxy Pictor A. The thin jet of electrons and protons shoots out at nearly light-speed likely from the vicinity of a large black hole at the galaxy center. At the left of the above image in X-rays is the radio galaxy Pictor A, known as a radio galaxy for its strong radio emission. At the far end of the jet on the right a hot spot glows as the intense particle beam bores through a gas cloud in intergalactic space. The jet and hot spot of Pictor A had been seen previously in radio waves, but only recently has the orbiting Chandra X-ray Observatory confirmed its unusual power.