Black Holes Shine for NuSTAR
September 5th, 2013
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

An optical color image of galaxies is seen here overlaid with X-ray data (magenta) from NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR).

NuSTAR's serendipitous discovery in this field lies to the left of a galaxy, called IC 751, at which the telescope originally intended to look. Both magenta blobs show X-rays from massive black holes buried at the hearts of galaxies.

The optical image is from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and a color composite of images over three different optical wavebands (the G, R, and I bands). The NuSTAR data shows X-rays in the 3 to 24 keV energy range.

Observation

About the Object

Name
IC 751
Type
Galaxy > Type > Spiral
Distance
437,000,000 Light Years
Redshift
0.031199

Color Mapping

Band Wavelength Telescope
X-ray 16.0 keV NuSTAR
Optical 550 nm SDSS
Optical 700 nm SDSS
Optical 900 nm SDSS

Astrometrics

Position (2000.0)
RA = 11h 58m 52.6s
Dec = 42° 34' 13.2"
Field of View
10.7 x 6.0 arcminutes
Orientation
North is 0.1° left of vertical