In the center of these images is the quasar H1821+643, a rapidly growing supermassive black hole that astronomers have found is underachieving, despite producing intense radiation and a jet of particles seen in radio data from the Very Large Array.

Located in the middle of a cluster of galaxies, H1821+643 is surrounded by huge quantities of hot gas detected in X-rays by Chandra. The high temperatures and densities of the hot gas around the quasar shows that the black hole is having a weaker impact on its host galaxy than many of its other counterparts in other galaxy clusters. H1821+643 is the closest quasar to Earth in a cluster of galaxies. It is located 3.4 billion light-years from Earth and the image is about a million light-years across at the distance of the quasar.

This tactile plate of H1821+643 is a physical relief map based on the intensity of X-ray and radio data, depicting a quasar, a rare and extreme class of supermassive black hole. H1821+643 is located about 3.4 billion light-years from Earth.

At the center of the image is a raised, circular X-ray plateau, similar to a large button ready to be pressed. A less-distinct, bar-shaped structure of radio data, slightly larger than the width of the X-ray plateau, surrounds this circular structure. The radio bar also extends above and below the X-ray button, stretching in a somewhat straight line from about the one o'clock position to the seven o'clock position on a clock face.

On either side of the radio bar, more X-ray data is present as rippling, wispy clouds of hot gas that are raised higher closer to the central features. The more bumpy clouds represent more dense gas.