NGC 1637: A spiral galaxy 38 million light years
from Earth.
Caption: A series of Chandra observations over
a 21-month period provides dramatic evidence of the restless, changing nature
of this spiral galaxy. Bright X-ray sources due to neutron stars, black
holes and a supernova flashed on and off, giving the galaxy the appearance
of a cosmic Christmas tree. The supernova, SN1999em, appears in panels 4
and 49 as the faint source at the five o'clock position just below the diffuse
glow in the center of the image. The extremely bright (white) source that
appears in all panels at the nine o'clock position is likely a black hole
formed relatively recently (in the last million years or so) and is now
pulling in gas from an orbiting companion star.
Scale: Each panel is 8.5 arcmin per side
Chandra X-ray Observatory ACIS Images
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