Composite
Mosaic showing 3 images related to the Inner Sanctum of the Supermassive Black Hole in NGC 1097.
NGC1097 Wide
Artist's conception of NGC 1097's inner ring structure which is about 4500 light-years diameter. This is the region where several thousand spectra were obtanied with the Gemini Multi-object Spectrograph to understand the detailed motions of this gas.
NGC1097 Close-Up
Artist's conception of 2000 Astronomical Units-wide (about 11.5 light-days) accretion disk surrounding supermassive black hole at the core of NGC 1097.
Thaisa
NGC1097 Close-Up
Active galaxy NGC 1097, 47 million light-years away, with an expanded ring structure around the central region.