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A black hole feeding frenzy!

May 14, 1998
Web posted at: 5:23 p.m. EDT (2123 GMT)
Centaurus A
Centaurus A  

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Pictures of an intergalactic feeding frenzy are delighting scientists at NASA and revealing new information about the behavior of black holes.

About 10 million light-years away from Earth, a massive black hole hidden at the center of a galaxy known as Centaurus A is consuming a smaller spiral galaxy that, at some point, collided with Centaurus A.

Centaurus A and its black hole activity have intrigued scientists for years, but not until now have scientists gotten a good look at what's going on.

Images of the space meal, taken recently by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, were released Thursday. They are the best pictures yet to give scientists a close look at black hole activity -- a phenomenon scientists know little about.

Many of the images show a spectacular orange cloud of dust and matter stretching across the nucleus of Centaurus.

Using Hubble's infrared technology, NASA peered beyond the red hot gasses, into the center of the nucleus, where they found a surprise: a disc-like structure that has formed around the active nucleus of Centaurus A.

Dr. Alessandro Marconi
Dr. Alessandro Marconi
icon 221K AIFF or WAV sound

"We have interpreted (this) as a gas disc of about 130 light-years across," explained Alessandro Marconi of the Astrophysical Observatory of Arcetri in Florence, Italy.

The glowing dust layer that stretches across Centaurus A is something NASA scientists have studied for years. Through geometry, they know the smaller galaxy came in on a given plane and collided with Centaurus A and gradually settled into the bigger galaxy's plane.

"Nowhere in that geometry do we see anything related to this little disc, the gas disc we've seen at the center," said Ethan Schreier of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland.

"We don't know why this little disc formed along the line that it did. It may be interior gas, blobs of gas that have formed in there. We don't really know," Schreier said.

Hubble is scheduled to take more images of the phenomenon.

Through the additional images, NASA hopes to learn how the smaller disc formed, and how it relates to the black hole.

They also hope to learn more about the "eating habits" of black holes, which consume surrounding matter.

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