Credit: Ann Feild/Space Telescope Science Institute
An illustration of the physical, spatial and temporal picture for the outflows emanating from the vicinity of the super massive black hole in the galaxy NGC 5548. The behavior of the emission source in 5 epochs is shown along the time axis. The obscurer is situated at roughly 0.03 light years (0.01 parsecs) from the emission source and is only seen in 2011 and 2013 (it is much stronger in 2013). Outflow component 1 shows the most dramatic changes in its absorption troughs. Different observed ionic species are represented as colored zones within the absorbers.