Central disk of gas

Combined image of NGC 1332 shows the central disk of gas surrounding the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy. New ALMA observations traced the motion of the disk, providing remarkably precise measurements of the black hole's mass: 660 million times the mass of our Sun. The main image is from the Carnegie-Irvine Galaxy Survey. The box in the upper left is from the Hubble Space Telescope and shows the galaxy's central region in infrared light and the dusty disk appears as a dark silhouette. The ALMA image, upper right box, shows the rotation of the disk, enabling astronomers to calculate its mass. The red region in the ALMA image represents emission that has been redshifted by gas rotating away from us; the blue represents blue-shifted gas rotating toward us. The range of colors represent rotational speeds up to 500 kilometers per second. Credit: A. Barth (UC Irvine), ALMA (NRAO/ESO/NAOJ); NASA/ESA Hubble; Carnegie-Irvine Galaxy Survey.