Credit: NASA/CXC/SAO; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/N. Wolk
Far from the Madding Crowd
Earth is very far from the center of the Milky Way. That's a good thing. The center of our galaxy is a dangerous place, packed with deadly massive stars (ticking time bombs which produce dangerous, high intensity UV radiation before violently exploding) along with lots of X-ray emitting neutron stars, and tons of black holes too (including, of course, Sgr A*, a monster four million times more massive than the Sun lying at the Galaxy's dead center). But viewed safely from afar, these extreme objects make the center of the Galaxy a wondrously exciting place. The image above shows a full-color high-resolution Chandra X-ray Observatory X-ray image of the a nearly 4000 square lightyear region around the center the Milky Way. This image was obtained using 86 individual observations over twenty years, a total exposure time of more than three million seconds. The X-ray image is colored red, green, and blue, to better highlight different emitting sources and regions. The X-ray emission comes from stars and other individual sources, and also from large diffuse clouds of superheated, ionized gas.
Detailed analysis of this region discovered more than 3000 individual X-ray sources, not all of which are identified or understood. Sgr A* is within the bright, mottled area in pale gold near the center of the image. Emission from the black hole extends in large lobes of X-ray emitting gas dozens of lightyears across.
Published: January 26, 2026
<
HEA Dictionary ● Archive
● Search HEAPOW
● Other Languages
● HEAPOW on Facebook
● Download all Images
● Education ● HEAD
>
Each week the HEASARC
brings you new, exciting and beautiful images from X-ray and Gamma ray
astronomy. Check back each week and be sure to check out the HEAPOW archive!
Page Author: Dr. Michael F. Corcoran
Last modified Monday, 02-Feb-2026 11:48:18 EST