51³Ô¹ÏÍø

Pull back from the centre of the galaxy M106. M106 lies 23.5 million light years from Earth. This galaxy is typical of grand spiral galaxies, with dark dust lanes, youthful star clusters and star-forming regions in spiral arms around a bright nucleus (centre). This composite image highlights two anomalous arms in radio (purple) and X-ray (blue) data, which seem to arise in the central region and are evidence of energetic jets of material blasting into the galaxy's disk. The jets are likely powered by matter falling into a supermassive black hole at the centre of the galaxy. Image composed of data obtained by the Chandra X-ray Observatory, Hubble Space Telescope, Spitzer Space Telescope and the Very Large Array telescope.