Hubble views edge of stellar blast

Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, W. Blair; acknowledgment: Leo Shatz

While appearing as a delicate and light veil draped across the sky, this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope actually depicts a small section of the Cygnus supernova blast wave, located around 2,400 light-years away.

The name of the supernova remnant comes from its position in the northern constellation of Cygnus (the Swan), where it covers an area 36 times larger than the full moon.

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Source / Image Courtesy

A ricocheting jet blasting from a giant black hole has been captured by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory.

Chandra's data reveal the presence of a powerful jet of particles and electromagnetic energy that has shot out from the black hole and slammed into a wall of hot gas, then ricocheted to punch a hole in a cloud of energetic particles, before it collides with another part of the gas wall.

Cygnus A is a large galaxy that sits in the middle of a cluster of galaxies about 760 million light years from Earth. A supermassive black hole at the center of Cygnus A is rapidly growing as it pulls material swirling around it into its gravitational grasp.

During this process, some of this material is redirected away from the black hole in the form of a narrow beam, or jet. Such jets can significantly affect how the galaxy and its surroundings evolve.