Tuesday, May 01, 2007

Space telescopes image the Sombrero Galaxy

Data from a trio of space telescopes – Chandra, Spitzer and Hubble – have been combined to produce the new image of the sombrero Galaxy. Chandra observations reveal hot gas that glows in X rays and extends about 60,000 light years from the centre of the galaxy, which itself is only 50,000 light years wide. The gas is probably being blown outwards by a wind driven by supernova explosions in the galaxy.

Click on the article title to go to the site. They have an excellent short video of how the image of this galaxy was put together from the data from the other three telescopes.

submitted by Shaun A. Saunders

No comments: