Threads of superheated gas and magnetic fields are weaving a tapestry of energy at the center of the Milky Way galaxy. A new image of this new cosmic masterpiece was made using a giant mosaic of data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and the MeerKAT radio telescope in South Africa.
Spectacular photo reconstruction. When one looks at this region through a normal telescope, you really can't see anything, since there is so much gas and dust in the way, obscuring everything. That is why we really didn't know much about the center of our own galaxy, like there was a black hole there. So these are false color images taken at the extremes of electromagnetic radiation, xrays and radio waves, which both can penetrate through all the material blocking visible light. The xrays don't make it to the surface of the earth, so they are observed by the Chandra orbiting observatory. Then they are converted into visible images for us to behold!