PIA17560: Black Holes of the Circinus Galaxy
 Mission:  NuSTAR
 Instrument:  NuSTAR
 Product Size:  1600 x 1600 pixels (w x h)
 Produced By:  IPAC-Caltech
 Full-Res TIFF:  PIA17560.tif (7.683 MB)
 Full-Res JPEG:  PIA17560.jpg (599.9 kB)

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Original Caption Released with Image:

The magenta spots in this image show two black holes in the Circinus galaxy: the supermassive black hole at its heart, and a smaller one closer to the edge that belongs to a class called ultraluminous X-ray sources, or ULXs. The magenta X-ray data come from NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescopic Array, and are overlaid on a visible/infrared image from the Digitized Sky Survey.

ULXs consist of black holes actively accreting, or feeding, off material drawn in from a partner star. Astronomers are trying to figure out why ULXs shine so brightly with X-rays.

The ULX was spotted serendipitously by NuSTAR, which sees high-energy X-ray light. Further observations with other telescopes, combined with NuSTAR's data, revealed that the black hole is about 100 times the mass of our sun.

The Circinus galaxy is located 13 million light-years from Earth in the Circinus constellation.

For more information, visit http://www.nasa.gov/nustar and http://www.nustar.caltech.edu/.

Image Credit:
NASA/JPL-Caltech

Image Addition Date:
2013-11-26