Topsy Turvy Black Holes
November 26th, 2013
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

The magenta spots in this image show two black holes in the spiral galaxy called NGC 1313, or the Topsy Turvy galaxy. Both black holes belong to a class called ultraluminous X-ray sources, or ULXs. The magenta X-ray data come from NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescopic Array, and are overlaid on a visible image from the Digitized Sky Survey.

ULXs consist of black holes actively accreting, or feeding, off material drawn in from a partner star. Astronomers are trying to figure out why ULXs shine so brightly with X-rays.

NuSTAR's new high-energy X-ray data on NGC 1313 helped narrow down the masses of the black holes in the ULXs: the black hole closer to the center of the galaxy is about 70 to 100 times that of our sun. The other black hole is probably smaller, about 30 solar masses.

Observation

About the Object

Name
Topsy Turvy GalaxyNGC 1313
Type
Galaxy > Type > Spiral
Galaxy > Type > Barred
Distance
12,900,000 Light Years
Redshift
0.001568

Color Mapping

Band Wavelength Telescope
X-ray 16.0 keV NuSTAR
Optical 440 nm DSS
Optical 700 nm DSS

Astrometrics

Position (2000.0)
RA = 3h 18m 16.1s
Dec = -66° 29' 53.7"
Field of View
31.5 x 31.5 arcminutes
Orientation
North is 5.7° right of vertical