Centaurus A

In the center of a black, starry background is a galaxy with two long jets. The galaxy shown in shades of white, orange, and brown looks like a thick pancake tilted to the left. The pancake appears furry with lines representing magnetic information from SOFIA embedded in the disk of the galaxy. From the center of the pancake, above and below it, are two plumes of orange that look like steam rising from a hot cup of tea.
April 8, 2021
CreditOptical: European Southern Observatory (ESO) Wide Field Imager; Submillimeter: Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy/ESO/Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX)/A.Weiss et al.; X-ray and Infrared: NASA/Chandra/R. Kraft; JPL-Caltech/J. Keene; SOFIA/L. Proudfit
Historical DateApril 8, 2021
Language
  • english

NASA's Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) observed magnetic fields showin in this composite image of Centaurus A. They're shown as streamlines over an image of the galaxy taken at visible and submillimeter wavelengths by the European Southern Observatory and Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (orange), X-ray wavelengths from NASA's Chandra X-Ray observatory (blue) and infrared from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope (dark red).

More information: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/galactic-merger-warps-magnetic-fields

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Centaurus A

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