This is an illustration of how the night sky might look to a dweller in the core of galaxy NGC 4261, which harbors an 800-light-year-wide disk of dust and 1.2 billion-solar-mass black hole. This imaginary view is from a hypothetical planet inside the dust dusk, looking toward the black hole. The black hole's white-hot glow from super-heated gas is reddened by intervening dust. A "lighthouse beam" from the hot accretion disk around the black hole, along with invisible radio jets, radiates above and below the hole at right angles to the dark dust disk encircling the hole. This dark, dusty disk bisects the sky, blocking out light from the star behind it, and reddening starlight traveling near it by optical scattering - much in the same way the sunlight turns red at sunset by scatter from dust in our atmosphere. The imaginary planet, and surrounding stars, are destined to be swallowed by the black hole, and material in the disk spirals into its gravitational abyss.
Credits
Illustration by: J. Gitlin (Space Telescope Science Institute)| About The Object | |
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| Object Name | NGC 4261 |
| R.A. Position | 12h 19m 23.25s |
| Dec. Position | 05° 49' 32.49" |
| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | A name or catalog number that astronomers use to identify an astronomical object. |
| Object Description | The type of astronomical object. |
| R.A. Position | Right ascension – analogous to longitude – is one component of an object's position. |
| Dec. Position | Declination – analogous to latitude – is one component of an object's position. |
| Constellation | One of 88 recognized regions of the celestial sphere in which the object appears. |
| Distance | The physical distance from Earth to the astronomical object. Distances within our solar system are usually measured in Astronomical Units (AU). Distances between stars are usually measured in light-years. Interstellar distances can also be measured in parsecs. |
| Dimensions | The physical size of the object or the apparent angle it subtends on the sky. |
| About The Data | |
| Data Description |
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| Instrument | The science instrument used to produce the data. |
| Exposure Dates | The date(s) that the telescope made its observations and the total exposure time. |
| Filters | The camera filters that were used in the science observations. |
| About The Image | |
| Image Credit | The primary individuals and institutions responsible for the content. |
| Publication Date | The date and time the release content became public. |
| Color Info | A brief description of the methods used to convert telescope data into the color image being presented. |
| Orientation | The rotation of the image on the sky with respect to the north pole of the celestial sphere. |
