Centaurus A in infrared — Spitzer's infrared view cuts through the dust to reveal a warped, parallelogram-shaped disk at Cen A's heart — the shredded remains of a spiral galaxy it is still digesting.

Centaurus A in visible — In visible light Cen A is a glowing elliptical galaxy crossed by a dramatic dark dust lane — the warped, star-forming debris of the spiral it consumed.

Centaurus A in ultraviolet — GALEX's ultraviolet eye picks out hot young stars — including bursts of star formation strung along the path of the black hole's jet, beyond the galaxy's main body.

Centaurus A in xray — Chandra reveals a brilliant X-ray jet blasting from the central supermassive black hole, studded with knots, alongside diffuse hot gas and hundreds of X-ray binaries.

Centaurus A in multi — Every window at once: the visible dust lane, Spitzer's infrared halo, Chandra's blue X-ray jet, and the VLA's pink radio lobes — the full electromagnetic portrait of an active galaxy.

Continue your journey across the spectrum

Across the spectrum

Andromeda Galaxy

See it across the spectrum

Across the spectrum

M51 (Whirlpool Galaxy)

See it across the spectrum

Across the spectrum

M82 (Cigar Galaxy)

See it across the spectrum

Across the spectrum

M104 (Sombrero Galaxy)

See it across the spectrum

Across the spectrum

Cassiopeia A

See it across the spectrum

Across the spectrum

Crab Nebula

See it across the spectrum

Centaurus A

The nearest giant active galaxy — an elliptical that swallowed a spiral, crossed by a dark dust lane while a supermassive black hole fires jets across the spectrum.

Centaurus A is the closest galaxy with a powerful active nucleus, just 12 million light-years away in the southern constellation Centaurus. It is a giant elliptical that long ago collided with and swallowed a smaller spiral; the spiral's gas and dust survive as the dark, warped lane slashing across the bright stellar bulge. At its heart, a supermassive black hole of some 55 million solar masses launches relativistic jets that punch out of the galaxy and inflate enormous lobes — structures that only fully reveal themselves across the electromagnetic spectrum. Chandra traces the X-ray jet and its knots; Spitzer sees the warped infrared dust disk; GALEX catches ultraviolet bursts of star formation triggered along the jet's path; and the composite folds in the radio lobes that dwarf the visible galaxy. Because it is so near and so active, Cen A is the textbook laboratory for how a feeding black hole reshapes its host.