Chandra Release - January 11, 2018

Visual Description: SDSS J1354+1327

The X-ray and optical image of the galaxy SDSS J1354+1327 showcases a supermassive black hole burping. At the center of the image, there are a couple bright spots, glowing in green and pink, like fireflies hovering in the dark night sky. In the lower right corner, there is a pullout with a close-up of this area. Above that there is a large, irregularly shaped galaxy that resembles a fuzzy swirling vortex colored in blue, cream and pink. The galaxy is surrounded by much smaller and fainter dots of light around it. This graphic shows SDSS J1354+1327 (J1354 for short) with data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory (pink), and the Hubble Space Telescope (red, green and blue). The inset box contains a close-up view of the central region around J1354's supermassive black hole. A companion galaxy to J1354 is shown to the north. Chandra detected a bright, point-like source of X-ray emission from J1354, a telltale sign of the presence of a supermassive black hole millions or billions of times more massive than our sun.