Photo Gallery: Black Holes

in 2000, astronomers studying the A2104 galaxy cluster (in blue) discovered powerful x-rays emanating from several black holes in regions previously thought too old and devoid of gas to create such radiation. They had expected to find perhaps one such x-ray source in the area, but instead found six. The discovery, made using the Chandra X-ray Observatory, changed many of the assumptions scientists had made about the life cycles of galaxies and black holes.



This x-ray image taken in 1999 with NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory shows what astronomers believe is a supernova remnant interacting with the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy. Scientists studying the object, called Sagittarius A East, theorized that the shock wave created when it went supernova (bright yellow and orange tones) compressed and plowed gas into the gluttonous black hole (large white dot within shock wave) creating a period of intense feeding followed by a period of "starvation." Astronomers think similar relationships between supernovae and black holes may exist throughout the universe.



Astronomers think the object shown in this Chandra X-ray Observatory image (in box) may be an elusive intermediate-mass black hole. Located about 32 million light-years from Earth in the Messier 74 galaxy (M74), this object emits periodic bursts of x-rays at a rate that suggests it is much larger than a stellar-mass black hole but significantly smaller than the supermassive black holes found at the centers of galaxies. Few such middling black holes have been discovered, and scientists aren't sure how they form.



A view of the central region of the Perseus galaxy cluster, one of the most massive objects in the universe, shows the effects that a relatively small but supermassive black hole can have millions of miles beyond its core. Astronomers studying this photo, taken by the Chandra X-ray Observatory, determined that sound waves emitted by explosive venting around the black hole are heating the surrounding area and inhibiting star growth some 300,000 light-years away. "In relative terms, it is as if a heat source the size of a fingernail affects the behavior of a region the size of Earth," said Andrew Fabian of Cambridge University.