Feeding a Black Hole
New images of the VLT (Very Large Telescope) show details how matter spirals toward the black hole in the center of a galaxy: The Photo shows the whole of galaxy NGC1097. As this striking image reveals, NGC 1097 presents a centre that consists of a broken ring of bright knots surrounding the galaxy's nucleus.
Click here for a high resolution photograph.
"This is the first time that a detailed view of the channelling process of matter, from the main part of the galaxy down to the very end in the nucleus is released," says Almudena Prieto (Max-Planck Institute, Heidelberg, Germany), lead author of the paper describing these results. Located about 45 million light-years away in the southern constellation Fornax (the Furnace), NGC 1097 is a relatively bright, spiral galaxy seen face-on.
