James Webb Space Telescope Feed Post

NGC 7469 for Chandra's 25th Anniversary (Chandra/Webb/Hubble composite)

NGC 7469 is a spiral galaxy, seen face on, that contains a growing supermassive black hole. Chandra shows hot gas near the black hole. X-rays from Chandra (purple); optical/IR from Hubble (red, green, and blue); infrared image from Webb (red, green, and blue) Read more about Chandra's 25th annivesary: chandra.cfa.harvard.edu/photo/2024/25th/ Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Xiamen Univ./X. Xu; Optical/Infrared: NASA/ESA/UVA, NRAO, SUNY at Stony Brook/A. S. Evans, Hubble Heritage–ESA/Hubble Collaboration; Infrared: NASA/ESA/CSA/L. Armus, A. S. Evans; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/J. Major Visual Description: This composite image features a spiral galaxy, viewed face on. Here, two blue and red speckled arms spiral around a black hole at the heart of the galaxy, known as NGC 7469. Faint clouds of pale blue mist trace the lines of the speckled arms, muting the colors in the image. Here, the black hole at the center of the galaxy is represented by a bright white dot encircled by a mottled, neon purple ring. This dot and ring represent X-ray emission from hot gas around the black hole. Due to the perfect face-on angle, six red diffraction spikes radiate from the glowing black hole, like laser beams. Image & Description by NASA