Powerful blasts from a giant black hole

Images of NGC 5195, the companion to M51, the Whirlpool Galaxy, show slender arcs of cool hydrogen-emitting gas (red in inset image) that border two giant arcs of hot X-ray emitting gas observed by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory (blue in inset). The arcs formed when hot gas expelled from the black hole swept up cooler gas from the center of the galaxy. The H-alpha image (red in inset) was taken with the Kitt Peak National Observatory 0.9-meter telescope.