Optical and Radio Images of NGC 1266 (IMAGE)
Caption
The S0 lenticular galaxy NGC 1266 is unremarkable when observed in optical light (left, grayscale and black contours) very much an example of a "red and dead" galaxy but becomes alive and violent the instant telescopes sensitive to other parts of the electromagnetic spectrum are pointed at it. At the very center, within 100 light years of the few million solar mass black hole, molecular gas, the essential building block of all stars, is squashed to concentrations 100 times greater than the densest molecular clouds in the Milky Way (yellow). The gas is also being expelled at a pace faster than the gravity of the galaxy can contain. This rapidly expelled gas appears as two outflowing lobes, traveling away from the galaxy at up to 400 kilometers per second in opposite directions (red and blue contours). Along the way, the gas excites other wavelengths of light, including a red spectral line of hydrogen (H-alpha), seen only where there is ionized hydrogen (right, grayscale).
Credit
Katherine Alatalo/UC Berkeley
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