Written by Michael Allen An international team of astronomers using NASA’s IXPE (Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer), has challenged our understanding of what happens to matter in the direct vicinity of a black hole. With IXPE, astronomers can study incoming X-rays and measure the polarization, a property of light that describes the direction of its electric […]
Category: Marshall Astrophysics
NASA’s Hubble, Chandra Spot Rare Type of Black Hole Eating a Star
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory have teamed up to identify a new possible example of a rare class of black holes. Called NGC 6099 HLX-1, this bright X-ray source seems to reside in a compact star cluster in a giant elliptical galaxy. Just a few years after its 1990 launch, Hubble […]
NASA’s Chandra Finds Baby Exoplanet is Shrinking
A star is unleashing a barrage of X-rays that is causing a closely-orbiting, young planet to wither away an astonishing rate, according to a new study using data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and described in our latest press release. A team of researchers has determined that this planet will go from the size of Jupiter down to a small, barren world. […]
NASA’s IXPE Imager Reveals Mysteries of Rare Pulsar
An international team of astronomers has uncovered new evidence to explain how pulsing remnants of exploded stars interact with surrounding matter deep in the cosmos, using observations from NASA’s IXPE (Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer) and other telescopes. Scientists based in the U.S., Italy, and Spain, set their sights on a mysterious cosmic duo called PSR J1023+0038, […]
NASA’s Chandra Shares a New View of Our Galactic Neighbor
The Andromeda galaxy, also known as Messier 31 (M31), is the closest spiral galaxy to the Milky Way at a distance of about 2.5 million light-years. Astronomers use Andromeda to understand the structure and evolution of our own spiral, which is much harder to do since Earth is embedded inside the Milky Way. The galaxy […]
NASA’s Chandra Sees Surprisingly Strong Black Hole Jet at Cosmic “Noon”
A black hole has blasted out a surprisingly powerful jet in the distant universe, according to a new study from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and discussed in our latest press release. This jet exists early enough in the cosmos that it is being illuminated by the leftover glow from the big bang itself. Astronomers used […]
NASA’s IXPE Obtains First X-ray Polarization Measurement of Magnetar Outburst
What happens when the universe’s most magnetic object shines with the power of 1000 Suns in a matter of seconds? Thanks to NASA’s IXPE (Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer), a mission in collaboration with ASI (Italian Space Agency), scientists are one step closer to understanding this extreme event. Magnetars are a type of young neutron star […]
Galaxy Clusters on Course to Crash Again, NASA’s Chandra Finds
New observations from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and other telescopes have captured a rare cosmic event: two galaxy clusters have collided and are now poised to head back for another swipe at each other. Galaxy clusters are some of the largest structures in the Universe. Held together by gravity, they are monster-sized collections of hundreds […]
Eccentric ‘Star’ Defies Easy Explanation, NASA’s Chandra Finds
Scientists have discovered a star behaving like no other seen before, giving fresh clues about the origin of a new class of mysterious objects. As described in our press release, a team of astronomers combined data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and the SKA [Square Kilometer Array] Pathfinder (ASKAP) radio telescope on Wajarri Country in […]
NASA Telescopes Tune Into a Black Hole Prelude, Fugue
NASA released three new pieces of cosmic sound Thursday that are associated with the densest and darkest members of our universe: black holes. These scientific productions are sonifications — or translations into sound — of data collected by NASA telescopes in space including the Chandra X-ray Observatory, James Webb Space Telescope, and Imaging X-ray Polarimetry […]