Black hole blow-out
Updated on 10 January 2008
Dramatic images showing the effects of a massive black hole on a nearby galaxy have been released by Nasa.
The space agency say the images are the best to date and show opposing jets of high energy particles extending to the outer reaches of space.
The pictures were taken by the Chandra-X-ray Observatory over a week of continuous observation.
Astronomers believe the pictures also show a rare type of star system, with multiple black holes in it.
Experts say in this extremely rare case, two stars are formed at exactly the same time, one larger than the other, which eventually collapses to form a black hole and then slowly devours the other star.
To find one is amazing, but these pictures show two in Centaurus A alone, implying scientists do not understand the inner workings of the systems as intimately as they had first thought.
Chandra has been operating in space since 1999 and takes pictures of activity billions of light years away.
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