Recently, the official website of NASA announced a "beautiful photo" of the Milky Way 23 million light-years away: huge black holes, shock waves and a large amount of gas are intertwined, as if a beautiful fireworks show is being staged.
It is reported that the Galactic 'fireworks show' is carried out in the spiral galaxy NGC 4258 (also known as M106), which is like our own Milky way. However, NGC 4258 is known for its two spiral arms that emit X-rays, optics and radio light. These 'abnormal arms' intersect the plane of the galaxy.
In the composite image released by NASA, the 'abnormal arm' of the galaxy can be seen. Among them, the X-rays from NASA Chandra X-ray Observatory are blue; The radio from NSF kaljansky super large array is purple; The optical data from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope is yellow; Infrared data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope is red.
A new study by Spitzer shows that, similar to the sonic boom of a supersonic aircraft, the shock wave is heating a large amount of gas, equivalent to about 10 million suns.
Researchers believe that the supermassive black hole at the center of NGC 4258 is producing a powerful jet of high-energy particles. These jets hit the galactic disk and produce shock waves. These shock waves heat the gas mainly composed of hydrogen molecules to thousands of degrees.
NASA's official website said that because the galaxy is close to the earth, astronauts can study in detail what impact the black hole will have on the galaxy.