When the Hubble Space Telescope launched, one of the first galaxies astronomers wanted to observe was Centaurus A. HST gave us an unprecedented close-up view of the central region in visible light, but the dark gas and dust still obscured our view to the center where the radio jet originates.

When HST was fitted with an infrared camera, the veils of dust and gas were stripped away to reveal a small but very hot core (see below, left). Subsequent studies of the velocities of stars close to the core strongly suggest that a very massive black hole is present and powering the radio jets. (The box shown in the visible image on the right is the same area observed in the infrared image below.)