A fleet of NASA missions has likely uncovered a collision between two ultradense stars in a tiny galaxy buried in a huge stream of gas. Astronomers have never seen this type of explosive event in an environment like this before — and it may help solve two outstanding cosmic mysteries. A paper describing these results […]
Category: Chandra X-Ray Observatory
Listen to This Month’s ‘Planetary Parade’ With NASA’s Chandra
In late February, people in the Northern Hemisphere can look up for a special sight : Six planets will all be visible from clear and dark night skies. New sonifications from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory released [day of week] will help commemorate this latest “planetary parade.” Because the planets in our solar system travel around […]
Young ‘Sun’ Caught Blowing Bubbles by NASA’s Chandra
For the first time, a much younger version of the Sun has been caught red-handed blowing bubbles in the galaxy, by astronomers using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. The bubble – called an “astrosphere” – completely surrounds the juvenile star. Winds from the star’s surface are blowing up the bubble and filling it with hot gas […]
NASA Telescopes Spot Surprisingly Mature Cluster in Early Universe
A new discovery captures the cosmic moment when a galaxy cluster – among the largest structures in the universe – started to assemble only about a billion years after the big bang, one or two billion years earlier than previously thought. This result, made using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and James Webb Space Telescope, will […]
NASA’s Chandra Releases Deep Cut From Catalog of Cosmic Recordings
Like a recording artist who has had a long career, NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory has a “back catalog” of cosmic recordings that is impossible to replicate. To access these X-ray tracks, or observations, the ultimate compendium has been developed: the Chandra Source Catalog (CSC). The CSC contains the X-ray data detected up to the end of 2020 by Chandra, the world’s […]
Supernova Remnant Video From NASA’s Chandra Is Decades in Making
A new video shows the evolution of Kepler’s Supernova Remnant using data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory captured over more than two and a half decades. Kepler’s Supernova Remnant, named after the German astronomer Johannes Kepler, was first spotted in the night sky in 1604. Today, astronomers know that a white dwarf star exploded when […]
NASA’s Chandra Rings in New Year With Champagne Cluster
Celebrate the New Year with the “Champagne Cluster,” a galaxy cluster seen in this new image from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and optical telescopes. Astronomers discovered this galaxy cluster Dec. 31, 2020. The date, combined with the bubble-like appearance of the galaxies and the superheated gas seen with Chandra observations (represented in purple), inspired the […]
NASA’s Chandra Rings in New Year With Champagne Cluster
Celebrate the New Year with the “Champagne Cluster,” a galaxy cluster seen in this new image from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and optical telescopes. Astronomers discovered this galaxy cluster Dec. 31, 2020. The date, combined with the bubble-like appearance of the galaxies and the superheated gas seen with Chandra observations (represented in purple), inspired the […]
NASA IXPE’s Longest Observation Solves Black Hole Jets Mystery
Written by Michael Allen An international team of astronomers using NASA’s IXPE (Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer) has identified the origin of X-rays in a supermassive black hole’s jet, answering a question that has been unresolved since the earliest days of X-ray astronomy. Their findings are described in a paper published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, […]
NASA’s Chandra Finds Small Galaxies May Buck the Black Hole Trend
Most smaller galaxies may not have supermassive black holes in their centers, according to a recent study using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. This contrasts with the common idea that nearly every galaxy has one of these giant black holes within their cores, as NASA leads the world in exploring how our universe works. A team […]