The jet of X-rays shoots out of the nucleus of M87, a giant elliptical galaxy 50 million light years away in the constellation Virgo. The new image, released Wednesday, reveals an irregular, knotty structure similar to that detected by radio telescopes and the Hubble Space Telescope in previous studies.

At the extreme left of the image, the bright galactic nucleus harboring a supermassive black hole shines. Such black holes, which can contain the mass of million or billions of stars, are thought to exist at the center of most or all large galaxies with central bulges of stars, though a recent study showed that many smaller, flat galaxies most likely do not have one.

Our own Milky Way Galaxy has a supermassive black hole, but it is not actively devouring matter to the extent that M87 appears to be, and so does not emit similarly intense amounts of X-rays.

The jet is thought to be produced by strong electromagnetic forces created by matter swirling toward the supermassive black hole. These forces pull gas and magnetic fields away from the black hole along its axis of rotation in a narrow jet.

Inside the jet, shock waves produce high-energy electrons that spiral around the magnetic field and radiate in a "synchrotron" process, creating the observed radio, optical and X-ray knots. Synchrotron radiation is caused by high-speed charged particles, such as electrons, emitting radiation as they are accelerated in a magnetic field.

The detailed observations provide strong support for the model where electrons are accelerated to high energies in the knots, radiating X-rays by the synchrotron process, Chandra scientists said.

The spectrum and intensity of the X-rays from the galactic nucleus also indicate that this radiation is not caused by hot gas produced by material falling into the supermassive black hole, a process that drives much of the X-rays and other emissions seen in distant galaxies.

The knots near the core are much brighter in X-rays than the farthest knots, relative to the optical and radio bands, which lead researcher Herman Marshall of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said was surprising. While the exact reason for this dimming is unknown, it is likely to be related to the slowing of the jet, he said.

The observations were made in July 2000.

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