Amazing New X-Ray Image of the Whirlpool Galaxy Shows it is Dotted with Black Holes

The Whirlpool galaxy seen in both optical (red, green and blue) and X-ray (purple) light. Image Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Wesleyan Univ./R.Kilgard, et al; Optical: NASA/STScI

In the Milky Way there’s a single X-ray binary — a system consisting of a black hole capturing and heating material from an orbiting companion star — known as Cygnus X-1. But 30 million light-years away in the Whirlpool galaxy, M51, there are hundreds of X-ray points of light and a full 10 X-ray binaries. (...)
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© Shannon Hall for Universe Today, 2014. | Permalink | 6 comments |
Post tags: Chandra X-ray Observatory, Whirlpool Galaxy, X-ray binaries

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