Chandra Release - May 2, 2023

Visual Description: Centaurus A


This composite image depicts a large galaxy with a brilliant glowing core, encircled by a ring of gas and dust. This featured galaxy, Centaurus A, is set against a dark background dotted with distant galaxies and stars.

Centaurus A has a glowing, pale yellow circle at its center. White and pale pink light emanates from this core, illuminating the dark ring of gas and dust which encircles it. The dark, veiny ring, known as a dust lane, is depicted on its side, tilted on an angle, lower at our left and higher on our right. 

Blasting away from the center of the galaxy, toward our upper left, is a large jet of high-energy particles 13,000 light-years long. The jet resembles a widening beam of pale blue light flecked with white dots.

Opposite the jet, to our lower right of the tilted dust lane, is a translucent blue shape resembling a giant bubble. This X-ray light was captured by the Chandra X-ray Observatory. Faint hints of translucent blue light can be found throughout the galaxy, intermingled with the pale pink light around the core, and above the dust lane at our upper left. The pale pink represents X-ray light captured by IXPE.