NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration

By studying the inner regions of nine elliptical galaxies with Chandra, scientists can now estimate the rate at which gas is falling toward the galaxies' supermassive black holes. These images also allowed them to estimate the power required to produce radio emitting bubbles in the hot X-ray gas.

The composite image of NGC 4696 shows a vast cloud of hot gas (red), surrounding high-energy bubbles 10,000 light years across (blue) on either side of the bright white area around the supermassive black hole. Images of the other galaxies in the study show a similar structure. (The green dots in the image show infrared radiation from star clusters on the outer edges of the galaxy).

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Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/KIPAC/S.Allen et al; Radio: NRAO/VLA/G.Taylor; Infrared: NASA/ESA/McMaster Univ./W.Harris