Closeup of black hole (IMAGE)

Michigan State University

Closeup of black hole

Caption

A close-up of the center of galaxy NGC4696 around its supermassive black hole. The background greyscale imaging comes from the Hubble Space Telescope. The overlaid coloured map shows the distribution of gas falling into the black hole as traced by the Paschen α line using the James Webb Space Telescope NIRSpec instrument. An S-shaped swirl can be seen in the gas.

Credit

NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI/J. Hlavacek-Larrondo, et al. 2026

Usage Restrictions

No restrictions.

License

Public Domain

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