James Webb Space Telescope Discovery

A Fab Five: New Images With NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory

Five new images feature X-ray data from Chandra along with other types of light from different telescopes, including NASA's Webb, Hubble and IXPE telescopes. The objects range both in distance and category. Vela and Kepler are supernova remnants within our own Milky Way galaxy, the center of which can be seen in the top panorama. NGC 1365 is a double-barred spiral galaxy located about 60 million light-years from Earth. Farther away and on an even larger scale, ESO 137-001 shows what happens when a galaxy hurtles through space and leaves a wake behind it. The fourth plate features a close-up of the spiral galaxy NGC 1365, and the supermassive black hole at its center. The galaxy is shown at a dramatic angle, as if the raised plateau of a core is gazing past our right shoulder. Swirls of material, resembling waves in a dark ocean, spiral toward the core, which hangs at our upper left. Spiraling circles, and flecks dot the churning spiral galaxy. In this plate, Chandra X-ray data has been combined with infrared data from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. The center of the spiral galaxy NGC 1365 contains a supermassive black hole being fed by a steady stream of material. Some of the hot gas revealed in the X-ray image from Chandra (purple) will eventually be pulled into the black hole. The Chandra image has been combined with infrared data from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (red, green, and blue). Credit: NASA/CXC/SAO, JPL-Caltech, MSFC, STScI, ESA/CSA, SDSS, ESO. View the rest of the images on Chandra. NGC 1365 Composite
NGC 1365 X-ray
NGC 1365 Infrared
NGC 1365 discovery page