How Our Galactic Center Glows

How does the center of the Milky Way galaxy, our galaxy, glow? As you can see from this photo, this region of our Galaxy, which is found 26,000 light years toward the constellation Sagittarius, glows “in every type of light that we can see.”

In the featured image, high-energy X-ray emission captured by NASA's orbiting Chandra X-Ray Observatory appears in green and blue, while low-energy radio emission captured by SARAO's ground-based MeerKAT telescope array is colored red. Just on the right of the colorful central region lies Sagittarius A (Sag A), a strong radio source that coincides with Sag A* [Sagittarius A-Star], our Galaxy's central supermassive black hole.

The image also captures hot gas that surround Sag A, as well as the Galactic Center Radio Arc (the thick red line found near the center of the image), numerous stars, and black holes.

(Image Credit: X-Ray: NASA, CXC, UMass, D. Wang et al.; Radio: NRF, SARAO, MeerKAT)


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