Chandra Release - November 30, 2017

Visual Description: J0045+41

This main panel of this image is an optical image of the far right side of the Andromeda galaxy with a bright blue dot highlighted at right and pulled out into an inset. The dominant colors in the optical image overall are shades of light blue, white, yellow and brown. The dot at right that is highlighted was believed to be a pair of supermassive black holes, but is now believed to be only a singular black hole. This blue dot in the inset is Chandra X-ray Observatory data of the source known as LGGS J004527.30+413254.3 (J0045+41 for short) in the context of optical images of Andromeda from the Hubble Space Telescope. Andromeda, also known as M31, is a spiral galaxy located about 2.5 million light years from Earth.