Hubble image archive
"X" Structure at Core of Whirlpool Galaxy (M51)
This image of the core of the nearby spiral galaxy M51, taken with the Wide Field Planetary camera (in PC mode) on NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, shows a striking , dark "X" silhouetted across the galaxy's nucleus. The "X" is due to absorption by dust and marks the exact position...
- Date
- Jan 1, 1992
- Mission
- Hubble Space Telescope
- Archive ID
- hubblesite-images-1992-17-68-image
This image of the core of the nearby spiral galaxy M51, taken with the Wide Field Planetary camera (in PC mode) on NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, shows a striking , dark "X" silhouetted across the galaxy's nucleus. The "X" is due to absorption by dust and marks the exact position of a black hole which may have a mass equivalent to one-million stars like the sun. The darkest bar may be an edge-on dust ring which is 100 light-years in diameter. The edge-on torus not only hides the black hole and accretion disk from being viewed directly from earth, but also determines the axis of a jet of high-speed plasma and confines radiation from the accretion disk to a pair of oppositely directed cones of light, which ionize gas caught in their beam. The second bar of the "X" could be a second disk seen edge on, or possibly rotating gas and dust in MS1 intersecting with the jets and ionization cones. The size of the image is 1100 light-years.
Credits
Credit: H. Ford (JHU/STScI), the Faint Object Spectrograph IDT, and NASAImage Details
| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | M51, Whirlpool Galaxy |
| R.A. Position | 13h 29m 52.36s |
| Dec. Position | 47° 11' 40.8" |
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Source
Image and source material are credited to the official mission archive linked below.
View on NASA.gov