The Energetic Jet from Centaurus A
Credit:
M. J. Hardcastle
(Univ. Bristol),
et al.
The center of well-studied active galaxy
Centaurus A
is hidden from the view of optical
telescopes by a cosmic jumble of stars, gas, and dust.
But both radio and
x-ray
telescopes can trace the
remarkable jet
of high-energy particles streaming from the galaxy's core.
With Cen A's central region at the lower right,
this composite false-color image shows the
radio emission in red and x-rays in blue over
the inner 4,000 light-years of the jet.
One of the most detailed images of its kind,
the
picture shows how the x-ray
and radio emitting sites are related along the
jet, providing
a road map to understanding the energetic stream.
Extracting
its energy from a supermassive black hole at the
galaxy's center, the jet is confined to a relatively narrow angle
and seems to produce most of its x-rays (bluer colors) at the upper left,
farther from the core, where the jet begins to collide with
Centaurus A's
denser gas.