Chandra Release - February 6, 2002

Visual Description: PKS 1127-145

This is an X-ray image of the quasar PKS 1127-145, which is a type of galaxy with an active supermassive black hole at its center.  The dominant colors in the image are magenta and pink.  The image shows a lot of dark pink speckled dots on a black background.   Quasars are extremely luminous objects that emit high-energy radiation across the electromagnetic spectrum, including ultraviolet, visible, and X-ray wavelengths.   The Chandra X-ray Observatory image of the quasar PKS 1127-145, about 10 billion light years from Earth, shows an enormous X-ray jet that extends at least a million light years from the quasar. The jet is likely due to the collision of a beam of high-energy electrons with microwave photons.  The high-energy beam is thought to have been produced by explosive activity related to gas swirling around a supermassive black hole.