Stars and Gas Orbiting the Massive Black Hole

https://www.nrao.edu/archives/plugins/Dropbox/files/cnd_1cm_irac_rgb_hi.jpg

Description

Our Milky Way, like many other galaxies, harbors a massive black hole at its center that greatly influences the evolution of the nearby stars and gas. This image of the Milky Way's central region combines data over a wide range of wavelengths and include radio images from the NRAO Very Large Array (green) and BIMA (red) as well as an infrared image from the NASA Spitzer Space Telescope (blue). The red, green and blue colors represent, respectively, the cold gas, warm gas, and stars that are orbiting the Milky Way's supermassive black hole, SgrA*. Note the three-armed appearance of the ionized gas in the radio image that is superimposed on the distribution of the much colder molecular HCN emission.

Creator

Legacy Astronomical Images

Rights

NRAO/AUI/NSF does not hold full copyright for this image. Contact the archivist for details.

Type

Legacy Astronomical Image

Object Name

Sgr A

Investigators

F. Yusef-Zadeh (Northwestern University), M. C. H. Wright (UC Berkeley), S. Stolovy (Spitzer Science Center)

Telescope

Very Large Array (VLA)

Type of Observation

continuum

Band

K

Wavelength

1.2 cm

Frequency

22 GHz

Center of Image

RA 17:45:40.000, Dec: -20:0:28.000

Field of View

0.033333 x 0.033333 degrees

Notes

Contact the archivist for a high resolution tif of this image.

Series

Galactic Sources Series

Unit

Black Holes Unit

Citation

Legacy Astronomical Images, “Stars and Gas Orbiting the Massive Black Hole,” NRAO/AUI Archives, accessed March 29, 2024, https://www.nrao.edu/archives/items/show/33428.