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Summary

Description
English: NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has imaged a wild creature of the dark — a coiled galaxy with an eye-like object at its center.The 'eye' at the center of the galaxy is actually a monstrous black hole surrounded by a ring of stars. In this color-coded infrared view from Spitzer, the area around the invisible black hole is blue and the ring of stars, white.

The galaxy, called NGC 1097 and located 50 million light-years away, is spiral-shaped like our Milky Way, with long, spindly arms of stars.

The black hole is huge, about 100 million times the mass of our sun, and is feeding off gas and dust, along with the occasional unlucky star. Our Milky Way's central black hole is tame in comparison, with a mass of a few million suns.

The ring around the black hole is bursting with new star formation. An inflow of material toward the central bar of the galaxy is causing the ring to light up with new stars. And, the galaxy's red spiral arms and the swirling spokes seen between the arms show dust heated by newborn stars. Older populations of stars scattered through the galaxy are blue. The fuzzy blue dot to the left, which appears to fit snugly between the arms, is a companion galaxy. Other dots in the picture are either nearby stars in our galaxy, or distant galaxies.

This image was taken during Spitzer's cold mission, before it ran out of liquid coolant. The observatory's warm mission is ongoing, with two infrared channels operating at about 30 degrees Kelvin (-406 degrees Fahrenheit).

The colors blue, green, and red respectively indicate infrared light of wavelengths 3.6, 4.5, and 8.0 μm (micrometers). The "blue" light has also been subtracted from the "red" in order to enhance the visibility of the dust features.
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Author NASA/JPL-Caltech

Licensing

Public domain This file is in the public domain in the United States because it was solely created by NASA. NASA copyright policy states that "NASA material is not protected by copyright unless noted". (See Template:PD-USGov, NASA copyright policy page or JPL Image Use Policy.)
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determination method or standard: work of the federal government of the United States

inception

23 July 2009

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Date/TimeThumbnailDimensionsUserComment
current23:20, 24 May 2010Thumbnail for version as of 23:20, 24 May 20102,056 × 2,056 (1.04 MB)TryphonBetter quality, from http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/Media/releases/ssc2009-14/ssc2009-14a.shtml (http://ipac.jpl.nasa.gov/media_images/ssc2009-14a1.jpg).
13:29, 11 August 2009Thumbnail for version as of 13:29, 11 August 20092,056 × 2,056 (457 KB)TonyBallioni{{Information |Description={{en|1=Original caption released with photo: NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has imaged a wild creature of the dark -- a coiled galaxy with an eye-like object at its center.The 'eye' at the center of the galaxy is actually a mons

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