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Explanation: A big beautiful spiral galaxy 2 million light-years away, Andromeda (M31) has long been touted as an analog to the Milky Way, a distant mirror of our own galaxy. The popular 1960s British sci-fi series, A For Andromeda, even postulated that it was home to another technological civilization that communicated with us. Using the newly unleashed observing power of the orbiting Chandra X-ray telescope, astronomers have now imaged the center of our near-twin island universe, finding evidence for an object so bizarre it would have impressed many 60s science fiction writers (and readers). Like the Milky Way, Andromeda's galactic center appears to harbor an X-ray source characteristic of a black hole of a million or more solar masses. Seen above, the false-color X-ray picture shows a number of X-ray sources, likely X-ray binary stars, within Andromeda's central region as yellowish dots. The blue source located right at the galaxy's center is coincident with the position of the suspected massive black hole. While the X-rays are produced as material falls into the black hole and heats up, estimates from the X-ray data show Andromeda's central source to be surprisingly cool - only a million degrees or so compared to the tens of millions of degrees indicated for Andromeda's X-ray binaries.
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NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings, and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris. Specific rights apply.
A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
Based on Astronomy Picture
Of the Day
Publications with keywords: black hole - Andromeda - Galactic Center - M 31
Publications with words: black hole - Andromeda - Galactic Center - M 31
See also:
- APOD: 2024 April 1 Á Swirling Magnetic Field around Our Galaxys Central Black Hole
- Milky Way Rising
- APOD: 2023 November 13 Á Andromeda over the Alps
- UHZ1: Distant Galaxy and Black Hole
- The Once and Future Stars of Andromeda
- APOD: 2023 August 23 Á The Meteor and the Galaxy
- The Galaxy, the Jet, and a Famous Black Hole