Tag Archive for 'Torus'

Hubble and Webb/ALMA images of the Butterfly Nebula. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / Webb / Hubble / ALMA / Matsuura et al., doi: 10.1093/mnras/staf1194.

Webb Spots Torus of Cosmic Dust and Organics in Butterfly Nebula

Aug 29, 2025 by News Staff

With the help of the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have made a big leap forward in the understanding of how the raw material of...

This artist’s concept shows the possible locations of iron revealed in XRISM’s X-ray spectrum of NGC 4151. Image credit: Conceptual Image Lab, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

XRISM Detects Iron in Accretion Disk around NGC 4151’s Supermassive Black Hole

May 8, 2024 by Enrico de Lazaro

NGC 4151 is a spiral galaxy located some 62 million light-years away in the northern constellation of Canes Venatici. This artist’s concept shows the...

Astronomers Find Obscuring Dust Ring around Supermassive Black Hole in Messier 77

Feb 17, 2022 by News Staff

Astronomers using the Multi AperTure mid-Infrared SpectroScopic Experiment (MATISSE) on ESO’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer have spotted a dense,...

This Hubble image of the nearby active galaxy IC 5063 reveals a mixture of bright rays and dark shadows coming from the blazing core, home of a supermassive black hole. Image credit: Credits: NASA / ESA / Hubble / STScI / W.P. Maksym, CfA.

Hubble Spots Shadow of Supermassive Black Hole’s Torus in IC 5063

Nov 23, 2020 by News Staff

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have observed spectacular large-scale dark and light rays beaming out of the bright center of IC...

An artist’s impression of planets orbiting a supermassive black hole. Image credit: Kagoshima University.

Planets May Form and Orbit around Supermassive Black Holes

Nov 25, 2019 by Enrico de Lazaro

Protoplanetary disks around stars may not be the only site for planet formation in the Universe, according to a team of theoretical astrophysicists from...

An artist’s impression of the center of the barred spiral galaxy Messier 77. ALMA discovered two counter-rotating flows of gas around the black hole. The colors in this image represent the motion of the gas: blue is material moving toward us, red is moving away. Image credit: NRAO / AUI / NSF / S. Dagnello.

ALMA Spots Counter-Rotating Disks around Supermassive Black Hole in Messier 77

Oct 17, 2019 by News Staff

Supermassive black holes, millions to billions of times the mass of our Sun, are found at the centers of galaxies. Many of these enormous objects are hidden...

VLA image of Cygnus A’s central region. Image credit: Carilli et al / NRAO / AUI / NSF.

Astronomers Capture Direct Image of Active Galactic Nucleus Torus

Apr 5, 2019 by News Staff

Astronomers using NSF’s Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) have caught the direct image of the thick torus surrounding the supermassive black hole...

Artist illustration of the thick ring of dust that can obscure the energetic processes that occur near the supermassive black hole of an active galactic nucleus. Image credit: NASA / SOFIA / Lynette Cook.

NASA’s SOFIA Observatory Spots Compact Tori of Dust around Active Supermassive Black Holes

Jun 14, 2017 by News Staff

Using observations from NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), a Boeing 747SP jetliner modified to carry a 100-inch telescope,...