Chandra Release - October 19, 2016

Visual Description: NGC 5128

This image features the galaxy named Centaurus A and a pull out of a flaring object within it detected by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. The dominant colors in the image are red-orange, teal and blue. Centaurus A has a prominent X-ray jet extending for thousands of light years pointing to the upper left in the image, with a shorter "counterjet" aimed in the opposite direction.  The structure of the image overall has a slight dumbbell shape with a large swath of material cutting across the center in two strips. In the image, low, medium, and high-energy X-rays are colored red, green, and blue. This image also shows the location, at the 8 o'clock position to the lower left, of a remarkable source that dramatically flares in X-rays unlike any ever seen before.  In the inset, the source starts out as a tiny dot of blue expanding dramatically to a large bright blue-white blob before dimming back down, all over the course of about six frames.