Fireworks near Galaxy NGC 4151
The Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) simultaneously records, in unprecedented detail, the velocities of hundreds of gas knots streaming at hundreds of thousands of miles (or kilometres) per hour from the nucleus of NGC 4151, thought to house a supermassive black hole.
This is the first time the velocity structure in the heart of this object, or similar objects, has been mapped so vividly this close to its central black hole.
Credit:
About the Image
NASA press release
NASA caption
NASA caption
| Id: | opo9718a |
| Type: | Collage |
| Release date: | 9 June 1997, 18:45 |
| Size: | 2400 x 3000 px |
About the Object
| Name: | IRAS 12080+3941, NGC 4151 |
| Type: | • Local Universe : Galaxy : Type : Spiral • Local Universe : Galaxy : Activity : AGN : Seyfert • Quasars/AGN/Black Hole Images/Videos • Cosmology Images/Videos |
| Distance: | 40 million light years |
Colours & filters
| Band | Wavelength | Telescope |
| Optical OIII |
500 nm | Hubble Space Telescope WFPC2 |
| Optical V |
495 nm | Hubble Space Telescope STIS |
| Optical V |
500 nm | Hubble Space Telescope STIS |
