Tag Archive for 'X-rays'

This image from the eROSITA X-ray telescope shows the energetic Universe. As eROSITA scans the sky, the energy of the collected photons is measured with an accuracy ranging from 2% - 6%. To generate this image, in which the whole sky is projected onto an ellipse (so-called Aitoff projection) with the center of the Milky Way in the middle and the body of our Galaxy running horizontally, photons have been color-coded according to their energy (red for energies 0.3-0.6 keV, green for 0.6-1 keV, blue for 1-2.3 keV). The red diffuse glow away from the galactic plane is the emission of the hot gas in the vicinity of the Solar System (the Local Bubble). Along the plane itself, dust and gas absorb the lowest energy X-ray photons, so that only high-energy emitting sources can be seen, and their color appears blue in the image. The hotter gas close to the Galactic center, shown in green and yellow, carries imprinted the history of the most energetic processes in the life of the Milky Way, such as supernova explosions, driving fountains of gas out of the plane, and, possibly, past outburst from the now dormant supermassive black hole in the center of the Milky Way. Piercing through this turbulent, hot diffuse medium, are hundreds of thousands of X-ray sources, which appear mostly white in the image, and uniformly distributed over the sky. Among them, distant active galactic nuclei are visible as point sources, while clusters of galaxies reveal themselves as extended X-ray nebulosities. In total, about one million X-ray sources have been detected in this image. Image credit: Jeremy Sanders, Hermann Brunner & the eSASS team / Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics / Eugene Churazov & Marat Gilfanov, IKI.

eROSITA X-Ray Telescope Captures Hot, Energetic Universe

Jun 19, 2020 by News Staff

A new all-sky image from the eROSITA X-ray telescope onboard the Spectrum-Roentgen-Gamma (SRG) space observatory contains over one million objects, about...

An artist’s impression of a magnetar. Image credit: ESA.

Astronomers Discover Youngest Magnetar Ever

Jun 18, 2020 by News Staff

Using NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, ESA’s XMM-Newton observatory, NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR), and ground-based...

An artist’s impression of an ultraluminous X-ray pulsar. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

Astronomers Find Ultraluminous X-Ray Pulsar in Magellanic Bridge

Jun 8, 2020 by Enrico de Lazaro

Astronomers using ISRO’s AstroSat space observatory have detected a very rare ultraluminous X-ray source in the Magellanic Bridge, a 43,000-light-year-long...

Our Milky Way Galaxy is surrounded by an enormous halo of plasma (seen in blue in this artists’ rendition). Image credit: NASA / CXC / M.Weiss / Ohio State / A. Gupta et al.

Milky Way’s Halo Hotter than Previously Thought

Jun 2, 2020 by News Staff

Using deep X-ray observations from ESA’s XMM-Newton Observatory, astronomers have discovered that Milky Way’s halo — a large cloud of ionized...

Chandra Catches Relativistic Jets from Stellar-Mass Black Hole

Jun 2, 2020 by News Staff

Astronomers using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory have observed a pair of relativistic jets blasting away from a black hole in the binary system MAXI...

An artist’s conception illustrates the phenomena that make up the new class of cosmic explosions called fast blue optical transients. Image credit: Bill Saxton / NRAO / AUI / NSF.

New Class of Cosmic Explosions Discovered: Fast Blue Optical Transients

May 28, 2020 by News Staff

Fast blue optical transients (FBOTs) share some characteristics with supernova explosions of massive stars and with explosions that generate gamma-ray...

Abell 2384 contains the giant structures that can result when two galaxy clusters collide. A superheated gas bridge is seen in this composite image with X-rays from Chandra and XMM-Newton (blue), radio emission from the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (red) and optical data from the Digitized Sky Survey (yellow). This multi-wavelength view reveals the effects of a jet shooting away from a supermassive black hole in the center of a galaxy in one of the clusters. The jet is so powerful that it is bending the shape of the gas bridge, which extends for over 3 million light-years and has the mass of about 6 trillion solar masses. Image credit: NASA / CXC / SAO / V. Parekh et al / ESA / XMM-Newton / NCRA / GMRT.

Astronomers Spot Enormous Bridge of Hot Gas between Two Galaxy Clusters

May 11, 2020 by News Staff

Astronomers using ESA’s XMM-Newton and NASA’s Chandra X-ray observatories have observed a 3-million-light-year-long bridge of hot gas linking two unequal...

Chandra and XMM-Newton data indicate that a white dwarf survived a close call with the central black hole in GSN 069. Image credit: NASA / CXO / CSIC-INTA / G. Miniutti et al / CXC / M. Weiss.

Near-Miss Tidal Disruption: White Dwarf Survives Close Encounter with Supermassive Black Hole

Apr 28, 2020 by News Staff

Professor Andrew King from the University of Leicester has shown that periodic X-ray eruptions from a galaxy called GSN 069 could result from the core...

The clutch of Massospondylus carinatus eggs. Image credit: Brett Eloff.

Scientists Use X-rays to Peer inside Fossilized Dinosaur Eggs

Apr 10, 2020 by Enrico de Lazaro

Powerful X-ray beams at the European Synchrotron in France allowed an international team of researchers to study some of the world’s oldest and well-preserved...

This artist’s impression shows the evolution of the Universe beginning with the Big Bang on the left followed by the appearance of the Cosmic Microwave Background. The formation of the first stars ends the cosmic dark ages, followed by the formation of galaxies. Image credit: M. Weiss / Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

Universe is Anisotropic on Large Scales, New Study Suggests

Apr 9, 2020 by News Staff

Space-based X-ray observations of hundreds of galaxy clusters suggest that the Universe may be different depending on which way astronomers look. The study...

Intermediate-Mass Black Hole Found in Outskirts of Lenticular Galaxy

Apr 1, 2020 by News Staff

A bright X-ray source in a massive star cluster in the outskirts of 6dFGS gJ215022.2-055059, a barred lenticular galaxy located about 806 million light-years...

Reynolds et al used Chandra to look for extraordinarily low-mass axion-like particles in the Perseus galaxy cluster, a group of galaxies located 240 million light-years away from Earth. The observation lasting over five days showed no evidence for certain axion-like particles, which some theorists think can explain dark matter. The lack of detection in these Chandra observations helps rule out some versions of string theory, a set of models intended to tie together all known forces, interactions, and particles. Image credit: NASA / CXC / University of Cambridge / Reynolds et al.

Astrophysicists Perform Test of String Theory

Mar 25, 2020 by News Staff

Astrophysicists using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory have looked for signs of an as-yet undetected particle predicted by string theory, a set of models...

An artist’s impression of a blazar. Image credit: DESY / Science Communication Lab.

Astronomers Discover Most Distant Blazar Yet

Mar 11, 2020 by Sergio Prostak

Astronomers using the Large Binocular Telescope have found a blazar 13 billion light-years from Earth, making it officially the most distant blazar ever...

Evidence for the biggest black hole eruption seen in the Universe comes from a combination of X-ray data from Chandra and XMM-Newton, and the Murchison Widefield Array and Giant Metrewave Telescope, as shown here. The eruption is generated by a black hole located in the central galaxy of the Ophiuchus galaxy cluster, which has blasted out jets and carved a large cavity in the surrounding hot gas. Image credit: NASA / CXC / NRL / S. Giacintucci et al / ESA / XMM-Newton / NCRA / TIFR / GMRT / 2MASS / UMass / IPAC-Caltech / NSF.

Universe’s Most Powerful Black Hole Eruption Spotted

Feb 28, 2020 by News Staff

Using data from ESA’s XMM-Newton and NASA’s Chandra X-ray space observatories, along with two ground-based radio telescopes in Australia and India,...

An artist’s impression of an L dwarf star, a star with so little mass that it is only just above the boundary of actually being a star, caught in the act of emitting an enormous superflare of X-rays, as detected by ESA’s XMM-Newton X-ray space observatory. Image credit: ESA.

XMM-Newton Detects X-ray Superflare from Ultracool Dwarf

Feb 25, 2020 by News Staff

Using data from the European Photon Imaging Camera (EPIC) onboard ESA’s XMM-Newton X-ray observatory, astronomers have detected for the first time a...

This illustration shows the surroundings of a black hole feeding on ambient gas as mapped using ESA’s XMM-Newton X-ray observatory. Image credit: ESA.

Astronomers Map Surroundings of Supermassive Black Hole

Jan 22, 2020 by News Staff

As material spirals towards a black hole, it is heated up and emits X-rays that, in turn, echo and reverberate as they interact with nearby gas. These...

This composite image shows the Milky Way-like spiral galaxy Messier 106: X-rays from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory are shown in blue, radio data from the NSF’s Karl Jansky Very Large Array are shown in purple, optical data from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope are shown in yellow and infrared data from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope are shown in red. Image credit: NASA / CXC / Caltech / P. Ogle et al / STScI / JPL-Caltech / NSF / NRAO / VLA.

Astronomers Capture Galactic Fireworks in Nearby Spiral Galaxy

Jan 1, 2020 by News Staff

This impressive fireworks display, which involves a supermassive black hole, enormous shock waves and vast reservoirs of gas, is taking place in an intermediate...

Giant cavities in the X-ray emitting intracluster medium (shown in blue, as observed by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory) have been carved out by a black hole outburst. X-ray data are overlaid on top of optical data from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope (in red/orange), where the central galaxy that is likely hosting the culprit supermassive black hole is also visible. Image credit: Calzadilla et al.

Astronomers Witness Extremely Powerful Black Hole Outburst in Distant Galaxy Cluster

Dec 25, 2019 by Enrico de Lazaro

Astronomers using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory have spotted an unusual outburst activity in the center of SPT-CLJ0528-5300 (SPT-0528 for short),...

This composite image of the galaxy group-galaxy group merger NGC 6338 contains X-ray data from Chandra (displayed in red) that shows hot gas with temperatures upward of about 20 million degrees Celsius, as well as cooler gas detected with Chandra and XMM (shown in blue) that also emits X-rays. The image contains optical data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Image credit: Chandra / NASA / CXC / SAO / E. O’Sullivan / ESA / XMM / SDSS.

NGC 6338: Two Galaxy Groups are Colliding at Incredible Speed

Dec 19, 2019 by News Staff

Using data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, ESA’s XMM-Newton, the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope, and the Apache Point Observatory, astronomers...

Astronomers Measure Size and Mass of Nearby Pulsar, Create Map of Its Surface Hot Spots

Dec 17, 2019 by News Staff

Using the X-ray data from NASA’s Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER), astronomers have produced a map of hot spots on the surface of a...

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