Jetting Away
Jets of energetic particles race away from a supermassive black hole in the center of the galaxy M84 in this composite image from several telescopes. The jets (in pink, as viewed by a radio telescope) ram into gas around the galaxy, heating the gas to millions of degrees (blue, as seen by an orbiting X-ray telescope). The jets span tens of thousands of light-years, and are replenished by outbursts of particles from a disk that surrounds the central black hole. This process may disrupt clouds of gas that would otherwise give birth to new stars. [NASA/CXC/MPE/A.Finoguenov et al.; NSF/NRAO/VLA/ESO/R.A.Laing et al; SDSS]
For more information, visit StarDate's Black Holes Encyclopedia.
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