A giant bubble of hot gas surrounds Cygnus A, a giant galaxy about 760 million light-years away, in this composite image. It’s classified as a radio galaxy because it produces enormous amounts of radio waves. Red areas, imaged at radio wavelengths, show where powerful ‘jets’ shot into space by the galaxy’s supermassive black hole ram into the surrounding intergalactic material. The blue shows X-rays emitted by hot gas in the galaxy. The yellow shows the galaxy and stars at visible wavelengths. The entire complex spans more than 600,000 light-years. [X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: NASA/STScI; Radio: NSF/NRAO/AUI/VLA]
Find out more in our radio program entitled Cygnus A.