Credit: NRAO/AUI/NSF, observers Ed Fomalont (NRAO), Ron Ekers (ATNF), Wil van Breugel (UC-Berkeley), Kate Ebneter (UC-Berkeley)

Fornax A is a galaxy with a very active black hole in its core that is spraying radio waves out into enormous jets. Here, the white glow in the center is the visible galaxy NGC 1316 that you can see through the constellation of Fornax. Notice the wee spiral galaxy above it? These two galaxies are merging, and as gas and dust are stripped out of the small galaxy and poured into the center of NGC 1316, the black hole nestled there spins it up. How do we know this? The huge radio lobes to either side of this merger are the telltale signs that a black hole is being fed more than it can handle. These are the billowing ends of powerful jets shooting out spun-up, escaped material far into space.

Provider: National Radio Astronomy Observatory

Image Source: https://public.nrao.edu/news/observatory-sponsoring-astronomical-image-contest/

Curator: NRAO/AUI/NSF, Charlottesville, Virginia, USA

Image Use Policy: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/)