Gaia's snapshot of another galaxy

ESA - Gaia Mission patch.

20 April 2017

While compiling an unprecedented census of one billion stars in our Galaxy, ESA's Gaia mission is also surveying stars beyond our Milky Way. A new image of M33, also known as the Triangulum galaxy, shows tens of thousands of stars detected by Gaia, including a small stellar census in its star-forming region NGC 604. This is a striking example of the mission's potential to detect and characterise stars in nearby galaxies.

Gaia's view of the M33 galaxy. Credit: ESA/Gaia/DPAC

Gaia, ESA's mission for precision astrometry, was launched in December 2013 and has been scanning the sky since 25 July 2014. While its goal is to survey one billion stars in our Milky Way galaxy – about one per cent of its total stellar content – the on-board detection system records a much wider selection of cosmic sources.

Even though the majority of objects detected by Gaia are Milky Way stars, the satellite has also been observing a wealth of stars that belong to other galaxies, providing an important database to study the stellar populations of galaxies beyond our own [1].

Observations of the M33 galaxy provide a clear demonstration of Gaia's prospects for extragalactic studies.

Located some 2.4 million light-years away, M33 is one of our neighbouring galaxies and is part of the Local Group, the assembly of galaxies that includes our Milky Way and the Andromeda galaxy. A spiral galaxy with less than one tenth the mass of the Milky Way or Andromeda, M33 is the third largest member of the Local Group and is thought to be a satellite galaxy of Andromeda.

A new image of the patch of sky where M33 is found, based on 26 scans performed between 7 and 9 December 2016, shows all points where Gaia detected one or more sources.

Gaia's detections correspond to about 40 000 of the galaxy's brightest stars, a small fraction of the total stellar population of M33, which amounts to roughly 40 billion stars. The high stellar density of this region means that Gaia can only detect a fraction of these extragalactic stars each time it scans this portion of the sky.

Very dense stellar fields – like external galaxies, as well as the densest portions of our Galaxy, such as Baade's Window [2] – are particularly challenging for Gaia. Even if very powerful, the data processing units on the satellite have a limit to the number of objects that can be observed per second without saturating the onboard computer. As time goes by, Gaia will survey these regions on many more occasions and with different scanning configurations, eventually recording more of the detected stars.

M33 hosts a well-known star-forming region, NGC 604, which is home to many newborn stars. With a density of about one million stars per square degree, NGC 604 is one such challenging region to observe.

Images above: The star forming region NGC 604 viewed by Gaia (left) and Hubble (right). Image Credit: ESA/Gaia/DPAC (left); ESA/Hubble & NASA (right).

A comparison between the Gaia detections in that region and a high-resolution image of this stellar nursery from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows that Gaia has detected about 150 individual stars in the NGC 604 region, which spans only about 0.55 square arcminutes in the sky. This number might not sound big in absolute terms, but it is impressive when considering that the observed field is about 2000 times smaller than the area covered by the full Moon in the sky, revealing that Gaia is able to detect a significant number of extragalactic stars.

This is even more remarkable given that Gaia's observed stars are automatic detections obtained by the satellite’s onboard computing system while scanning over the region, whereas the stars detected in astronomical images, such as those from Hubble, are the result of dedicated observations obtained by pointing at specific regions on the sky, which are later analysed by scientists.

ESA Science & Technology: An extragalactic star-forming region

Video above: From M33 to NGC 604. Click here for details and large versions of the video. Credits: ESA/Gaia/DPAC; ESA/Hubble & NASA.

With this quality of data, observations of stellar fields in Local Group galaxies like M33 will yield estimates of the position, parallax, and proper motion for a wealth of extragalactic stars – these will be published in the future Gaia data releases [3].

Notes:

[1] In addition to stars in the Milky Way and nearby galaxies, Gaia has been detecting distant galaxies and quasars – the bright cores of distant galaxies with an active black hole at their centre – as well as hundreds of thousands of asteroids and other small bodies in the Solar System.

[2] Baade's Window is an area on the sky toward the centre of the Milky Way with little contamination by interstellar dust, where the density of stars reaches up to three million per square degree.

[3] Due to the great distance of these extragalactic stars, they are mostly among the faintest sources detected by the satellite, requiring an especially meticulous analysis of the data in order to interpret them correctly.

For more information about ESA's Gaia: http://sci.esa.int/gaia/

Images (mentioned), Video (mentioned), Text, Credits: ESA/Gaia/DPAC/ESA/Hubble and NASA.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

Hubble celebrates 27 years with two close friends

ESA - Hubble Space Telescope logo.

 20 April 2017

A close galactic pair

This stunning cosmic pairing of the two very different looking spiral galaxies NGC 4302 and NGC 4298 was imaged by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The image brilliantly captures their warm stellar glow and brown, mottled patterns of dust. As a perfect demonstration of Hubble’s capabilities, this spectacular view has been released as part of the telescope’s 27th anniversary celebrations.

 A sea of galaxies

Since its launch on 24 April 1990, Hubble has been nothing short of a revolution in astronomy. The first orbiting facility of its kind, for 27 years the telescope has been exploring the wonders of the cosmos. Astronomers and the public alike have witnessed what no other humans in history have before. In addition to revealing the beauty of the cosmos, Hubble has proved itself to be a treasure chest of scientific data that astronomers can access.

Wide-field image of NGC 4298 and NGC 4302 (ground-based image)

ESA and NASA celebrate Hubble’s birthday each year with a spectacular image. This year’s anniversary image features a pair of spiral galaxies known as NGC 4302 — seen edge-on — and NGC 4298, both located 55 million light-years away in the northern constellation of Coma Berenices (Berenice’s Hair). The pair, discovered by astronomer William Herschel in 1784, form part of the Virgo Cluster, a gravitationally bound collection of nearly 2000 individual galaxies.

Annotated wide-field image of NGC 4298 and NGC 4302 (ground-based image)

The edge-on NGC 4302 is a bit smaller than our own Milky Way Galaxy. The tilted NGC 4298 is even smaller: only half the size of its companion.

Hubble Space Telescope

At their closest points, the galaxies are separated from each other in projection by only around 7000 light-years. Given this very close arrangement, astronomers are intrigued by the galaxies’ apparent lack of any significant gravitational interaction; only a faint bridge of neutral hydrogen gas — not visible in this image — appears to stretch between them. The long tidal tails and deformations in their structure that are typical of galaxies lying so close to each other are missing completely.

Pan on NGC 4298 and NGC 4302

Astronomers have found very faint tails of gas streaming from the two galaxies, pointing in roughly the same direction — away from the centre of the Virgo Cluster. They have proposed that the galactic double is a recent arrival to the cluster, and is currently falling in towards the cluster centre and the galaxy Messier 87 lurking there — one of the most massive galaxies known. On their travels, the two galaxies are encountering hot gas — the intracluster medium — that acts like a strong wind, stripping layers of gas and dust from the galaxies to form the streaming tails.

Zoom-in on NGC 4298 and NGC 4302

Even in its 27th year of operation, Hubble continues to provide truly spectacular images of the cosmos, and even as the launch date of its companion — the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope — draws closer, Hubble does not slow down. Instead, the telescope keeps raising the bar, showing it still has plenty of observing left to do for many more years to come. In fact, astronomers are looking forward to have Hubble and James Webb operational at the same time and use their combined capabilities to explore the Universe.

Animation above: This animation zooms through the Virgo Cluster of nearly 2,000 galaxies into tight Hubble Space Telescope images of spiral galaxies NGC 4302 (left) and NGC 4298 (right) in visible and infrared light. Located approximately 55 million light-years away, the starry pair offers a glimpse of what our Milky Way galaxy would look like to an outside observer. Animation Credits: NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon, J. DePasquale, and Z. Levay (STScI) Acknowledgment: A. Fujii; Digitized Sky Survey (DSS), STScI/AURA, Palomar/Caltech, and UKSTU/AAO; B. Franke (Focal Point Observatory); and M. Mutchler (STScI).

More information:

The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between ESA and NASA.

Links:

Video Fulldome view of NGC 4298 and NGC 4302: http://www.spacetelescope.org/videos/heic1709c/

Images of Hubble: http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/archive/category/spacecraft/

Hubblesite release: http://hubblesite.org/news_release/news/2017-14

26th anniversary image: Bubble Nebula: http://spacetelescope.org/news/heic1608/

25th anniversary image: Westerlund 2: http://spacetelescope.org/news/heic1509/

NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope: https://jwst.nasa.gov/

For images and more information about Hubble, visit:

http://hubblesite.org/
http://www.nasa.gov/hubble
http://www.spacetelescope.org/

Images, Text, Credits: NASA, ESA/Mathias Jäger/M. Mutchler (STScI)/Digitized Sky Survey 2; Acknowledgement: Davide De Martin/Videos: DSS/Hubble/Music: Astral Electronic/Johan B. Monell.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

NASA's Mars Rover Opportunity Leaves 'Tribulation'

NASA - Mars Exploration Rover (MER-B) patch.

April 20, 2017

Mars Rover Opportunity's Panorama of 'Rocheport' (click on the images for enlarge)

Image above: A grooved ridge called "Rocheport" on the rim of Mars' Endeavour Crater spans this scene from the Pancam on NASA's Mars rover Opportunity. Image Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell Univ./Arizona State Univ.

NASA's senior Mars rover, Opportunity, is departing "Cape Tribulation," a crater-rim segment it has explored since late 2014, southbound for its next destination, "Perseverance Valley."

The rover team plans observations in the valley to determine what type of fluid activity carved it billions of years ago: water, wind, or flowing debris lubricated by water.

A color panorama of a ridge called "Rocheport" provides both a parting souvenir of Cape Tribulation and also possible help for understanding the valley ahead. The view was assembled from multiple images taken by Opportunity's panoramic camera.

Segments on Western Rim of Endeavour Crater, Mars

Image above: This image shows segments of the western rim of Mars' Endeavour Crater. NASA's Mars rover Opportunity has explored parts of the rim since 2011. Image Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS.

"The degree of erosion at Rocheport is fascinating," said Opportunity Deputy Principal Investigator Ray Arvidson, of Washington University in St. Louis. "Grooves run perpendicular to the crest line. They may have been carved by water or ice or wind. We want to see as many features like this on the way to Perseverance Valley as we can, for comparison with what we find there."

Perseverance Valley is about two football fields long. It cuts downward west to east across the western rim of Endeavour Crater. The crater is about 14 miles (22 kilometers) in diameter, with a segmented rim that exposes the oldest rocks ever investigated in place on Mars. Opportunity has less than four football fields' distance of driving to reach the top of the valley after departing Cape Tribulation, a raised segment about 3 miles (5 kilometers) long on the crater's western rim.

In 68 months since reaching Endeavour Crater, Opportunity has explored "Cape York," "Solander Point" and "Murray Ridge" before reaching Cape Tribulation about 30 months ago. "Cape Byron," the next raised segment to the south, contains Perseverance Valley and is separated from Tribulation by a gap of flatter ground.

Mars Rover Opportunity's Panorama of 'Rocheport' (Stereo)

Image above: A grooved ridge called "Rocheport" on the rim of Mars' Endeavour Crater spans this stereo scene from NASA's Mars rover Opportunity. Image Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell Univ./Arizona State Univ.

Five drives totaling about 320 feet (98 meters) since the beginning of April have brought Opportunity to a boundary area where Cape Tribulation meets the plain surrounding the crater.

Cape Tribulation has been the site of significant events in the mission. There, in 2015, Opportunity surpassed a marathon-race distance of total driving since its 2004 landing on Mars. It climbed to the highest-elevation viewpoint it has reached on Endeavour's rim. In a region of Tribulation called "Marathon Valley," it investigated outcrops containing clay minerals that had been detected from orbit. There were some name-appropriate Tribulation experiences, as well. The rover team has coped with loss of reliability in Opportunity's non-volatile "flash" memory since 2015. With flash memory unavailable, each day's observations are lost if not radioed homeward the same day.

"From the Cape Tribulation departure point, we'll make a beeline to the head of Perseverance Valley, then turn left and drive down the full length of the valley, if we can," Arvidson said. "It's what you would do if you were an astronaut arriving at a feature like this: Start at the top, looking at the source material, then proceed down the valley, looking at deposits along the way and at the bottom."

Mars Rover Opportunity's Panorama of 'Rocheport' (Enhanced Color)

Image above: A grooved ridge called "Rocheport" on the rim of Mars' Endeavour Crater spans this scene from the Pancam on NASA's Mars rover Opportunity. Image Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell Univ./Arizona State Univ.

Clues to how the valley was carved could come from the arrangement of different sizes of rocks and gravel in the deposits.

He said, "If it was a debris flow, initiated by a little water, with lots of rocks moving downhill, it should be a jumbled mess. If it was a river cutting a channel, we may see gravel bars, crossbedding, and what's called a 'fining upward' pattern of sediments, with coarsest rocks at the bottom." Another pattern that could be evidence of flowing water would be if elongated pieces of gravel in a deposited bed tend to be stacked leaning in the same direction, providing a record of the downstream flow direction.

Now more than 13 years into a mission originally scheduled to last three months on Mars, Opportunity remains unexpectedly capable of continued exploration. It has driven about four-tenths of a mile (two-thirds of a kilometer) since the start of 2017, bringing the total traverse so far to 27.6 miles (44.4 kilometers). The current season on Mars is past the period when global dust storms might arise and curtail Opportunity's solar power.

Mars Exploration Rover B "Opportunity". Image Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Opportunity and the next-generation Mars rover, Curiosity, as well as three active NASA Mars orbiters, and surface missions to launch in 2018 and 2020 are all part of a legacy of robotic exploration which is helping to lay the groundwork for sending humans there in the 2030s. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, built Opportunity and manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. For more information about Opportunity, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/rovers

http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov

Images (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/Laurie Cantillo/Dwayne Brown/JPL/Guy Webster.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch

Expedition 51 Duo Launches on Express Trip to Station

ROSCOSMOS - Soyuz MS-04 Mission patch.

April 20, 2017

Images above: The Soyuz MS-04 spacecraft launches to the International Space Station carrying Expedition 51 crew members Fyodor Yurchikhin and Jack Fischer. Image Credits: NASA/Aubrey Gemignani/NASA TV.

The Soyuz MS-04 launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to the International Space Station at 3:13 a.m. EDT Thursday, April 20 (1:13 p.m. Baikonur time). At the time of launch, the space station was flying about 250 miles over northeast Kazakhstan near the southern Russian border. NASA astronaut Jack Fischer and Fyodor Yurchikin of Roscosmos are now safely in orbit.

Expedition 51-52 Launches to the International Space Station

The pair will travel on a fast-track, six-hour course to the space station and dock to the Poisk module at 9:23 a.m. NASA TV coverage of the docking will begin at 8:30 a.m. Once at the station, they will be welcomed by Expedition 51 Commander Peggy Whitson of NASA and Flight Engineers Oleg Novitskiy of Roscosmos and Thomas Pesquet of ESA (European Space Agency). Hatches between the Soyuz and space station will open at approximately 11:05 a.m. NASA TV coverage of hatch opening and welcome ceremonies will begin at 10:45 a.m.

Image above: Expedition 51 crew members Fyodor Yurchikhin (left) and Jack Fischer give a “thumbs up” as they pose for pictures April 14 in front of their Soyuz booster rocket. Image Credits: NASA/Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center/Andrey Shelepin.

Related links:

ROSCOSMOS. SUCCESSFUL LAUNCH FROM BAIKONUR: http://en.roscosmos.ru/20673/

Expedition 51: https://blogs.nasa.gov/spacestation/category/expedition-51/

To learn more about the International Space Station, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/station.

Images (mentioned), Video (ROSCOSMOS & NASA TV), Text, Credits: NASA/Mark Garcia.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

New Crew Ready for Launch as Cygnus Races to Station

ISS - Expedition 51 Mission patch.

April 19, 2017

Two Expedition 51 crew members are in quarantine today at the Cosmonaut Hotel in Baikonur, Kazakhstan, getting ready for their liftoff Thursday morning. Meanwhile, new science gear and crew supplies are on orbit right now and headed for the International Space Station this weekend.

Cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin is getting ready for his fifth mission to the space station on Thursday. He will ride to space with NASA astronaut and first-time space flier Jack Fischer aboard the Soyuz MS-04 spacecraft. The duo will launch at 3:13 a.m. EDT from the Baikonur Cosmodrome and take a six-hour, ten-minute ride to the Poisk module’s docking port.

Image above: Expedition 51 crew members Fyodor Yurchikhin (left) and Jack Fischer give a “thumbs up” as they pose for pictures April 14 in front of their Soyuz booster rocket. Image Credits: NASA/Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center/Andrey Shelepin.

Two days after Yurchikhin and Fischer dock and join their Expedition 51 crewmates, the Orbital ATK Cygnus cargo craft will arrive to resupply the orbital laboratory. Cygnus will deliver experiments supporting research into cancer-fighting drugs, semiconductor protein growth and atmospheric reentry conditions.

Station Commander Peggy Whitson along with Flight Engineer Thomas Pesquet trained for the rendezvous and grapple of the Cygnus cargo ship Saturday morning. The duo practiced on a computer the robotic maneuvers they will use to capture Cygnus with the Canadarm2.

Related links:

Orbital ATK Cygnus: https://www.nasa.gov/orbital

Space Station Research and Technology: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/index.html

International Space Station (ISS): https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html

Image (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/Mark Garcia.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

Cassini Heads Toward Final Close Encounter with Titan

NASA - Cassini Mission to Saturn patch.

April 19, 2017

Image above: Cassini will make its final close flyby of Saturn's moon Titan on April 21 (PDT), using its radar to reveal the moon's surface lakes and seas one last time. Image Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

NASA's Cassini spacecraft will make its final close flyby of Saturn's haze-enshrouded moon Titan this weekend. The flyby marks the mission's final opportunity for up-close observations of the lakes and seas of liquid hydrocarbons that spread across the moon's northern polar region, and the last chance to use its powerful radar to pierce the haze and make detailed images of the surface.

Closest approach to Titan is planned for 11:08 p.m. PDT on April 21 (2:08 a.m. EDT April 22). During the encounter, Cassini will pass as close as 608 miles (979 kilometers) above Titan's surface at a speed of about 13,000 mph (21,000 kph).

The flyby is also the gateway to Cassini's Grand Finale -- a final set of 22 orbits that pass between the planet and its rings, ending with a plunge into Saturn on Sept. 15 that will end the mission.  During the close pass on April 21, Titan's gravity will bend Cassini's orbit around Saturn, shrinking it slightly, so that instead of passing just outside the rings, the spacecraft will begin its finale dives which pass just inside the rings.

Crazy Engineering: Astrodynamics

Video above: NASA's Cassini spacecraft, in orbit around Saturn for nearly 13 years, is beginning its Grand Finale — and it's thanks to some Crazy Engineering! A team of engineers called astrodynamicists used math and physics to plot a course for the hardy spacecraft that would send it on a series of dives through the gap between Saturn and its famous rings. And as always, the efforts of these engineers are helping to enable some truly thrilling exploration and scientific discovery. Image Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

The flyby is Cassini's 127th targeted encounter with Titan. A targeted flyby is one for which the spacecraft uses its rocket engine or thrusters to accurately aim toward the encounter.

Cassini's radar instrument will look for changes in Titan’s methane lakes and seas, and attempt for the first (and last) time to study the depth and composition of Titan’s smaller lakes. The radar instrument will also search a final time for Titan’s "magic island," a mysterious feature in one of the moon's seas that changed in appearance over the course of several flybys. Scientists hope to gain additional insights to help them determine whether the feature is waves, bubbles, floating debris, or something else entirely.

More information about Cassini's final Titan flyby is available at: https://go.nasa.gov/2nFHaTo

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, ESA (European Space Agency) and the Italian Space Agency. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. JPL designed, developed and assembled the Cassini orbiter.

Related article:

Cassini Mission Prepares for 'Grand Finale' at Saturn
http://orbiterchspacenews.blogspot.ch/2017/04/cassini-mission-prepares-for-grand.html

More information about Cassini:

http://www.nasa.gov/cassini

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov

http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Cassini-Huygens

Image (mentioned), Video (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/Tony Greicius/JPL/Preston Dyches.

Best regards, Orbiter.ch

The Arrhythmic Beating of a Black Hole Heart

NASA - Chandra X-ray Observatory patch.

April 19, 2017

At the center of the Centaurus galaxy cluster, there is a large elliptical galaxy called NGC 4696. Deeper still, there is a supermassive black hole buried within the core of this galaxy.

New data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and other telescopes has revealed details about this giant black hole, located some 145 million light years from Earth. Although the black hole itself is undetected, astronomers are learning about the impact it has on the galaxy it inhabits and the larger cluster around it.

In some ways, this black hole resembles a beating heart that pumps blood outward into the body via the arteries. Likewise, a black hole can inject material and energy into its host galaxy and beyond.

By examining the details of the X-ray data from Chandra, scientists have found evidence for repeated bursts of energetic particles in jets generated by the supermassive black hole at the center of NGC 4696. These bursts create vast cavities in the hot gas that fills the space between the galaxies in the cluster. The bursts also create shock waves, akin to sonic booms produced by high-speed airplanes, which travel tens of thousands of light years across the cluster.

This composite image contains X-ray data from Chandra (red) that reveals the hot gas in the cluster, and radio data from the NSF's Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (blue) that shows high-energy particles produced by the black hole-powered jets. Visible light data from the Hubble Space Telescope (green) show galaxies in the cluster as well as galaxies and stars outside the cluster.

Astronomers employed special processing to the X-ray data to emphasize nine cavities visible in the hot gas. These cavities are labeled A through I in an additional image, and the location of the black hole is labeled with a cross. The cavities that formed most recently are located nearest to the black hole, in particular the ones labeled A and B.

The researchers estimate that these black hole bursts, or “beats”, have occurred every five to ten million years. Besides the vastly differing time scales, these beats also differ from typical human heartbeats in not occurring at particularly regular intervals.

A different type of processing of the X-ray data reveals a sequence of curved and approximately equally spaced features in the hot gas. These may be caused by sound waves generated by the black hole’s repeated bursts. In a galaxy cluster, the hot gas that fills the cluster enables sound waves – albeit at frequencies far too low for the human hear to detect – to propagate.

The features in the Centaurus Cluster are similar to the ripples seen in the Perseus cluster of galaxies. The pitch of the sound in Centaurus is extremely deep, corresponding to a discordant sound about 56 octaves below the notes near middle C. This corresponds to a slightly higher (by about one octave) pitch than the sound in Perseus. Alternative explanations for these curved features include the effects of turbulence or magnetic fields.

Chandra X-ray Observatory

The black hole bursts also appear to have lifted up gas that has been enriched in elements generated in supernova explosions. The authors of the study of the Centaurus cluster created a map showing the density of elements heavier than hydrogen and helium. The brighter colors in the map show regions with the highest density of heavy elements and the darker colors show regions with a lower density of heavy elements. Therefore, regions with the highest density of heavy elements are located to the right of the black hole. A lower density of heavy elements near the black hole is consistent with the idea that enriched gas has been lifted out of the cluster’s center by bursting activity associated with the black hole. The energy produced by the black hole is also able to prevent the huge reservoir of hot gas from cooling. This has prevented large numbers of stars from forming in the gas.

A paper describing these results was published in the March 21st 2016 issue of the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society and is available online. The first author is Jeremy Sanders from the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching, Germany.

NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the Chandra program for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, controls Chandra's science and flight operations.

Read More from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory:  http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2017/ngc4696/

For more Chandra images, multimedia and related materials, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/chandra

Images (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/Lee Mohon/CXC.

Greetings, Orbiter.ch