Distant Elliptical Galaxy Hercules A: Black Hole-Powered Jets | NASA Chandra

Distant Elliptical Galaxy Hercules A: Black Hole-Powered Jets  | NASA Chandra

There are galaxies with extremely bright cores. This suggests that they contain a supermassive black hole that is pulling in matter at a prodigious rate. Astronomers call these "active galaxies," and Hercules A is one of them. In visible light (colored red, green and blue, with most objects appearing white), Hercules A looks like a typical elliptical galaxy. In x-ray light, however, Chandra detects a giant cloud of multimillion-degree gas (purple). This gas has been heated by energy generated by the infall of matter into a black hole at the center of Hercules A that is over 1,000 times as massive as the one in the middle of the Milky Way. Radio data (blue) show jets of particles streaming away from the black hole. The jets span a length of almost one million light years.

Hercules A is a bright radio source located over 2 billion light-years away in the constellation Hercules. This galaxy is over 1,000 times more massive than the Milky Way and contains one of the largest central supermassive black holes known. The black hole has a mass of around 4 billion solar masses. 

Credits: 

X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO

Optical: NASA/STScI

Radio: NSF/NRAO/VLA
Release Date: Sept. 15,  2026

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