1. Illustrations of Black Hole Eclipse
These artist's representations, which are not to scale, explain how a supermassive black hole and the hot gas disk around it are eclipsed. The first illustration shows how light from the bright disk surrounding the black hole can directly reach Chandra. The second illustration demonstrates how this light can be blocked by a dense cloud of gas, which causes only reflected light from the disk to reach Chandra.
(Credit: NASA/CXC/M.Weiss)
Related Photo Album: NGC 1365
These artist's representations, which are not to scale, explain how a supermassive black hole and the hot gas disk around it are eclipsed. The first illustration shows how light from the bright disk surrounding the black hole can directly reach Chandra. The second illustration demonstrates how this light can be blocked by a dense cloud of gas, which causes only reflected light from the disk to reach Chandra.
(Credit: NASA/CXC/M.Weiss)
Related Photo Album: NGC 1365
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2. Illustration of Cosmic Web & Mkn 421
This illustration shows the absorption of X-rays from the quasar Mkn 421 by two intergalactic clouds of diffuse hot gas. These distant clouds (located 150 million and 370 million light years from Earth), are likely part of a predicted diffuse web-like system of hot gas clouds - the cosmic web - from which galaxies and clusters of galaxies are thought to have formed. This discovery is strong evidence that atoms and ions known to be present shortly after the Big Bang, but missing in inventories of matter in the present era, are hiding in the hard-to-see cosmic web. (Illustration: NASA/CXC/M.Weiss)
Related Photo Album: Mkn 421
This illustration shows the absorption of X-rays from the quasar Mkn 421 by two intergalactic clouds of diffuse hot gas. These distant clouds (located 150 million and 370 million light years from Earth), are likely part of a predicted diffuse web-like system of hot gas clouds - the cosmic web - from which galaxies and clusters of galaxies are thought to have formed. This discovery is strong evidence that atoms and ions known to be present shortly after the Big Bang, but missing in inventories of matter in the present era, are hiding in the hard-to-see cosmic web. (Illustration: NASA/CXC/M.Weiss)
Related Photo Album: Mkn 421
3. Illustration of Galactic Superwind
This artist's illustration depicts a quasar in the center of a galaxy that has turned on and is expelling gas at high speeds in a galactic superwind. Clouds of hot, X-ray producing gas detected by Chandra around the quasars 4C37.43 and 3C249.1, provide strong evidence for such superwinds.
(Credit: NASA/CXC/M.Weiss)
Related Photo Album: 4C37.43
This artist's illustration depicts a quasar in the center of a galaxy that has turned on and is expelling gas at high speeds in a galactic superwind. Clouds of hot, X-ray producing gas detected by Chandra around the quasars 4C37.43 and 3C249.1, provide strong evidence for such superwinds.
(Credit: NASA/CXC/M.Weiss)
Related Photo Album: 4C37.43
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4. Illustration of Quasar SDSSp J1306
This illustration shows how X-rays are thought to be produced in SDSSp J1306. Material from a large torus of gas and dust in the center of a galaxy is pulled toward a black hole. Most of the infalling gas is concentrated in a rapidly rotating disk, and a hot atmosphere or corona where temperatures can climb to billions of degrees. Collisions of low-energy optical, ultraviolet and X-ray photons from the disk with the hot electrons in the corona boost the energy of the photons up to the high-energy X-ray range.
(Illustration: NASA/CXC/M.Weiss)
Related Photo Album: SDSSp J1306
This illustration shows how X-rays are thought to be produced in SDSSp J1306. Material from a large torus of gas and dust in the center of a galaxy is pulled toward a black hole. Most of the infalling gas is concentrated in a rapidly rotating disk, and a hot atmosphere or corona where temperatures can climb to billions of degrees. Collisions of low-energy optical, ultraviolet and X-ray photons from the disk with the hot electrons in the corona boost the energy of the photons up to the high-energy X-ray range.
(Illustration: NASA/CXC/M.Weiss)
Related Photo Album: SDSSp J1306
5. X-ray Production by Compton Scattering of Microwave Background
X-rays are produced when low energy photons of the cosmic microwave background radiation (red) are boosted to X-ray energies (white) by colliding with high energy electrons in a jet of particles speeding away from the vicinity of a black hole. This process is called Compton scattering.
(Illustration: NASA/CXC/M.Weiss)
Related Field Guide: X-Rays - Another Form of Light
X-rays are produced when low energy photons of the cosmic microwave background radiation (red) are boosted to X-ray energies (white) by colliding with high energy electrons in a jet of particles speeding away from the vicinity of a black hole. This process is called Compton scattering.
(Illustration: NASA/CXC/M.Weiss)
Related Field Guide: X-Rays - Another Form of Light
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Revised: May 20, 2009