MPG/ESO Telescope Provides Deep Look at the Strange Galaxy Centaurus A
Posted on May 16, 2012
The Wide Field Imager attached to the MPG/ESO 2.2-meter telescope at the La Silla Observatory in Chile provided this deepest look yet at Centaurus A (NGC 5128). You can find a larger version of the image here. Centaurus A is a strange massive elliptical galaxy with a supermassive black hole at its center. It lies about 12 million light-years away in the southern constellation of Centaurus (The Centaur).
Centaurus A is the most prominent radio galaxy in the sky. Astronomers think that the bright nucleus, strong radio emission and jet features of Centaurus A are produced by a central black hole that has a mass about 100 million times that of our Sun. Matter from the dense central parts of the galaxy releases vast amounts of energy as it falls towards the black hole.
Centaurus A features a band of dark material that obscures its center. The ESO says Centaurus A is thought to be the result of a merger between two galaxies. Some evidence for this is the bright young star clusters that appear at the upper-right and lower-left edges of the band and the prominent radio emissions coming from the region. The ESO says the band "is probably the mangled remains of a spiral galaxy in the process of being ripped apart by the gravitational pull of the giant elliptical galaxy."