NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day Collection

PKS 1127-145: Quasar View

The quasar [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…] known as PKS 1127-145 [ http://chandra.harv…index.html ] lies ten "billion" light-years [ http://www.national…tier2html/telescope. htm ] from our fair planet. A Hubble Space Telescope [ http://hubble.gsfc.…sm3b.html ] view in the left panel shows this quasar along with other galaxies as they appear in optical light. The quasar [ http://chandra.harv…] itself is the brightest object in the lower right corner. In the right panel is a Chandra Observatory [ http://chandra.harv…chandra2001.html ] x-ray picture, exactly corresponding to the Hubble field. While the more ordinary galaxies [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…] are not seen in the Chandra image, a striking jet, nearly a million light-years long, emerges from the quasar to dominate the x-ray view. Bright in both optical and x-ray light, the quasar is thought to harbor a supermassive black hole which powers [ http://chandra.harv…quasars2.html ] the jet and makes PKS 1127-145 [ http://xxx.lanl.gov…] visible across the spectrum [ http://imagine.gsfc…emspectrum.html ] -- a beacon from the distant cosmos [ http://www.anzwers.…].

A. Siemiginowska (CfA [ http://cfa-www.harv…]) & J. Bechtold (U. Arizona [ http://www.as.arizo…]), et al., NASA [ http://www.nasa.gov/]

x-ray

quasar

jet

Arizona

Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC)

Washington, D.C.

Beacon

Hubble Space Telescope (HST)

http://antwrp.gsfc.…

SPD-APOD-ap020208