NGC 5128

High-Res

Object: NGC 5128

Lying about 10 million light years from Earth and spanning nearly 60,000 light years across, NGC 5128 is a unique object theorized by astronomers to be the merger of a dusty spiral galaxy with a giant elliptical within the past few billion years. NGC 5128 is a strong radio source possessing an active galactic nucleus that houses a 200 million solar mass black hole. A faint relativistic jet issuing forth from the black hole can be seen at a about a 4 o’clock direction from the center of the galaxy. Click on the link below the image for a photo identifying the position of the jet.