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This image shows a region near the center of our Milky Way galaxy in X-ray and radio light. At the bottom of the image, near the center, is a brilliant, tangled knot of material that resembles a paint splatter. This is the brightest region in the image, and it contains the supermassive black hole at center of our galaxy, known as Sagittarius A*. Rising up from Sagittarius A* in the center of the image is a pillar of blue light referred to as a chimney. This chimney of hot gas is surrounded by red clouds that are filled with stars, presenting themselves as tiny red flecks. Near the top of the blue pillar is a streak of light blue, outlined by an illustrated, gray box. This streak is referred to as the chimney exhaust vent. Just to our left is another illustrated box that shows the close-up image of the chimney vent as observed by Chandra.

NASA’s Chandra Notices the Galactic Center is Venting

Chandra data reveal several X-ray ridges that astronomers think are the walls of a tunnel, shaped like a cylinder, which helps funnel hot gas as it moves away from the Galactic Center. This “exhaust vent” is connected to a previously-discovered “chimney” and helps release hot gas generated by the supermassive black hole at the Galactic Center. In this image, Chandra’s X-rays are shown with radio data from MeerKAT to demonstrate the chimney and vent, with a closer-in view of the exhaust vent as well. The supermassive black hole is near the bottom of the image.

Image Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Univ. of Chicago/S.C. Mackey et al.; Radio: NRF/SARAO/MeerKAT; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/N. Wolk
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Image CreditX-ray: NASA/CXC/Univ. of Chicago/S.C. Mackey et al.; Radio: NRF/SARAO/MeerKAT; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/N. Wolk
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