Astronomy Picture of the Day 5-01-03

NASA ^ | 5-01-03 | Robert Nemiroff and Jerry Bonnell

[petuniasevan]

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

2003 May 1

The Energetic Jet from Centaurus A
Credit: M. J. Hardcastle (Univ. Bristol), et al.
X-ray; Chandra Observatory, NASA / Radio; NRAO, VLA

Explanation: The center of well-studied active galaxy Centaurus A is hidden from the view of optical telescopes by a cosmic jumble of stars, gas, and dust. But both radio and x-ray telescopes can trace the remarkable jet of high-energy particles streaming from the galaxy's core. With Cen A's central region at the lower right, this composite false-color image shows the radio emission in red and x-rays in blue over the inner 4,000 light-years of the jet. One of the most detailed images of its kind, the picture shows how the x-ray and radio emitting sites are related along the jet, providing a road map to understanding the energetic stream. Extracting its energy from a supermassive black hole at the galaxy's center, the jet is confined to a relatively narrow angle and seems to produce most of its x-rays (bluer colors) at the upper left, farther from the core, where the jet begins to collide with Centaurus A's denser gas.

[petuniasevan]

Vacation Announcement

I will be on vacation from June 2nd through June 9th.
If anyone would like to volunteer to post APOD during that time, please FReepmail me.
Otherwise the APOD will not be posted as I will be visiting relatives in California.

Right Ascension	13 : 25.5 (h:m)
Declination	-43 : 01 (deg:m)
Distance	15000.0 (kly)
Visual Brightness	7.0 (mag)
Apparent Dimension	18 x 14 (arc min)

Yes, you need to be well south to find this object. From about the latitude of Los Angeles or Atlanta it will be about 15 degrees above the southern horizon at its zenith. Here is an amateur image. It's a 20-minute exposure at f4 on Kodak RG 1000 through a 10-inch telescope.

Central region of galaxy Centaurus A:

Centaurus A is the nearest radio galaxy at about 10 - 15 million light-years' distance. Radio image of the inner lobes at 6 cm (4.9 GHz; VLA).

Centaurus A is also known as NGC 5128

This composite combines an optical picture of Cen A with dark lines tracing lobes of radio emission and an infrared image from the ISO satellite (in red).

Chandra X-ray image; composite of two observations 1999/2000

[petuniasevan]

[petuniasevan]

I'm posting right now; I should be at work.

Yesterday morning I was feeling really lousy as a result of a broken/abcessed molar. It had been giving me trouble for a while, but this was ridiculous.

I got my dentist to work me into his schedule at 8:15 AM. He looked at it and said it had to go. I agreed. I was referred to an oral surgeon for a 2 PM appointment.

I went there and got the offending tooth removed (no fun; I've got stitches and a groove in my jawbone under the gum).

I then went and filled the prescriptions for antibiotics and painkillers. The anesthetic wore off and I needed those drugs. My face is swollen and I can't eat anything that is crunchy. Ice cream is good. Hard to eat dinner, though.

I got no sleep, and I'm zonked from a combo of that and the painkiller pills.

Anything's better, though, than the toothache I had.

[green team 1999]

great posting,thank you,i like the third picture,fantastic.

[firewalk]

Good morning, thank you for the ping.
Hope you feel better

[sistergoldenhair]

a broken/abcessed molar

Ow! Thank goodness you were able to get to the dentist.
All that and you still managed to post these great images.
Thanks for the ping.

[BossyRoofer]

Great work!! Hope you heal up fast and start feel'n better soon! Thanks for all your work.

[Mustang]

I love this stuff. Looking into the celestial past gives one awe and preview to our future.

Sort'a like one of my favorite lines from the movie "Contact"...."If no one is out there, it's sure a waste of space"...

Mustang sends from "Malpaso" News.