The giant elliptical galaxy NGC 4261 is one of the twelve brightest galaxies in the Virgo cluster, located 45 million light-years away. A giant disk of cold gas and dust fuels a possible black hole at the core of this galaxy. The dark, dusty disk represents a cold outer region which extends inwards to an ultra-hot accretion disk with a few hundred million miles from the suspected black hole. This disk feeds matter into the black hole, where gravity compresses and heats the material.
Hot gas rushes from the vicinity of the black hole's creating the radio jets.
The jets are aligned perpendicular to the disk, like an axel through a wheel. All rights reserved. No part of this page may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the written permission of Strategic Resources Deployment Services. Copyright information goes here.