By learning the polarization of X-ray gentle emitted by Centaurus A, astronomers hope to achieve perception into one of many brightest galaxies within the sky.
Centaurus A (Cen A), situated some 12 million light-years away within the constellation Centaurus the Centaur, is the fifth-brightest galaxy within the night time sky and hosts an exceptionally highly effective supermassive black hole at its core.
This oddly formed galaxy was the most recent goal of two of NASA’s orbiting X-ray telescopes, the Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) satellite. The composite picture seen right here was additionally supplemented with optical gentle captured by the ground-based European Southern Observatory in Chile.
Launched on the finish of 2021, IXPE has already snapped spectacular images of the supernova remnants Cassiopeia A and the Crab Nebula, in addition to different targets. This space observatory’s function is to disclose details about a property of sunshine known as polarization, which helps astronomers higher perceive the speeds and energies particles attain after being accelerated by extraordinarily highly effective cosmic objects, resembling black holes.
On this mixed picture, IXPE’s view of Cen A reveals a particularly luminous core (white-yellow), whereas the Chandra X-ray Observatory (blue) highlights a pointy jet that extends some 13,000 light-years towards the higher left. The Chandra knowledge additionally exhibits two big lobes of energized materials round, in addition to reverse, the galaxy’s jet. In the meantime, the European Southern Observatory’s picture highlights the darkish strands of light-obscuring fuel and dust that wrap across the middle of Cen A, probably suggesting a collision with a small galaxy hundreds of thousands of years in the past.
Researchers focused Cen A with IXPE in an try to know why the galaxy’s jets are emitting so many X-rays. However to date, IXPE’s polarization knowledge doesn’t reveal a lot past suggesting the particles which are producing the X-rays are extra large than electrons, based on a Chandra Observatory news release.
Nonetheless, scientists will proceed to investigate the brand new knowledge for additional clues about Centaurus A, in addition to it’s stunning jet.
