Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/CfA/W. Forman et al.; Radio: NRAO/AUI/NSF/W. Cotton; Optical: NASA/ESA/Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA), and R. Gendler

NASA recently published a composite image of the giant elliptical galaxy M87, combining X-ray, optical, and radio images. The X-ray image was acquired by NASA’s space-based Chandra X-ray Observatory (CXO).

By the cosmic distance scale, M87 is nearby galaxy, located about 60 million light years away. It is one of the largest known galaxies, and the largest galaxy in the Virgo cluster of galaxies, a massive agglomeration of approximately 1,300 gravitationally-bound galaxies.
The image shows M87’s characteristic bright jets of material, electrons and subatomic particles, moving at incredible speeds close to the speed of light. These energetic streams are visible through the entire electromagnetic spectrum, and are believed to be powered from a mighty black hole at the center of the galaxy.

M87 is also a powerful source of radio waves and X-rays as it resides near the center of a gigantic hot cloud that emits X-rays. The extended radio emission comes from plumes of fast-moving gas from the jets rising into the X-ray emitting cluster medium.

X-ray images of M87 also show evidence for a series of outbursts from the central supermassive black hole. The loops and bubbles in the hot, X-ray emitting gas are remnants of small outbursts that occurred nearby the black hole.

Other remarkable features in M87 are narrow filaments of X-ray emission, which may be due to hot gas confined by magnetic fields. One of these filaments is over 100,000 light years long, and stretches below and to the right of the center of M87 in almost a straight line.

The optical data of M87 were obtained with Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys in visible and infrared filters. The X-ray data were acquired from the Chandra X-ray Observatory's Advanced CCD Imaging Spectrometer (ACIS). The radio data were collected using the National Radio Astronomy Observatory's Very Large Array (NRAO/VLA) in New Mexico.

Further Reading

CXO
http://chandra.harvard.edu/index.html
The Hubble Space Telescope
http://hubblesite.org/

Aymen Mohamed Ibrahem
Senior Astronomy Specialist