European Association for Astronomy Education

Source: ESA

Based on a new theoretical model, a team of scientists explored the rich data archive of ESA's XMM-Newton and NASA's Chandra space observatories to find pulsating X-ray emission from three sources. The discovery, relying on previous gamma-ray observations of the pulsars, provides a novel tool to investigate the mysterious mechanisms of pulsar emission, which will be important to understand these fascinating objects and use them for space navigation in the future.

Source: Chandra

TW Hya Association.
Image credits: X-ray: NASA/CXC/RIT/J.Kastner et al; Illustration: NASA/CXC/M.Weiss.

 Young stars much less massive than the Sun can unleash a torrent of X-ray radiation that can significantly shorten the lifetime of planet-forming disks surrounding these stars. This result comes from a new study of a group of nearby stars using data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and other telescopes.(learn more)

Source: Chandra

These two galaxy clusters are part of the "Frontier Fields" project, which uses some of the world's most powerful telescopes to study these giant structures with long observations. Galaxy clusters are enormous collections of hundreds or thousands of galaxies and vast reservoirs of hot gas embedded in massive clouds of dark matter. These images contain X-ray data from Chandra (blue), optical light from Hubble (red, green, and blue), and radio data from the Very Large Array (pink).

MACS J0416.1-2403 and MACS J0717.5+3745 : Two galaxy clusters located about 4.3 billion and 5.4 billion light years away respectively.(read more)

Source: Chandra Press

Jet from a very distant black hole, called B3 0727+409, found using the Chandra X-ray Observatory.
Image credits: X-ray: NASA/CXC/ISAS/A.Simionescu et al, Optical: DSS

Astronomers have used NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory to discover a jet from a very distant supermassive black hole being illuminated by the oldest light in the Universe. This discovery shows that black holes with powerful jets may be more common than previously thought in the first few billion years after the Big Bang.

The light detected from this jet was emitted when the Universe was only 2.7 billion years old, a fifth of its present age. At this point, the intensity of the cosmic microwave background radiation, or CMB, left over from the Big Bang was much greater than it is today.(read more)

Soure: Chandra Space Telescope

Image Credits: NASA/CXC/SAO

Archives, in their many forms, save information from today that people will want to access and study in the future. This is a critical function of all archives, but it is especially important when it comes to storing data from today's modern telescopes. (read more)

Source: Chandra Space Telescope

Image credits:NASA/CXC/MPE/G.Ponti et al; Illustration: NASA/CXC/M.Weiss.

Three orbiting X-ray telescopes have been monitoring the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy for the last decade and a half to observe its behavior, as explained in our latest press release. This long monitoring campaign has revealed some new changes in the patterns of this 4-million-solar-mass black hole known as Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*).(read more)

Source: NASA /Chandra

Abell 2597. Image credits: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Michigan State Univ/G.Voit et al; Optical: NASA/STScI & DSS; H-alpha: Carnegie Obs./Magellan/W.Baade Telescope/U.Maryland/M.McDonald.

This galaxy cluster comes from a sample of over 200 that were studied to determine how giant black holes at their centers affect the growth and evolution of their host galaxy, as reported in our latest press release. This study revealed that an unusual form of cosmic precipitation enables a feedback loop of cooling and heating, stifling star formation in the middle of these galaxy clusters.

Abell 2597, shown here, is a galaxy cluster located about one thousand million light years from Earth. This image contains X-rays from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory (blue), optical data from the Hubble Space Telescope and the Digitized Sky Survey (yellow) and emission from hydrogen atoms (red) from the Walter Baade Telescope in Chile.

Source: Chandra

In the middle of the twentieth century, an unusual star was spotted in the constellation of Canes Venatici (Latin for "hunting dogs"). Years later, astronomers determined that this object, dubbed AM Canum Venaticorum (or, AM CVn, for short), was, in fact, two stars. These stars revolve around each other every 18 minutes, and are predicted to generate gravitational waves - ripples in space-time predicted by Einstein. (learn more)

Source: NASA

Data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory have been used to discover 26 black hole candidates in the Milky Way's galactic neighbor, Andromeda, as described in our latest press release. This is the largest number of possible black holes found in a galaxy outside of our own.

A team of researchers, led by Robin Barnard of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, used 152 observations of Chandra spanning over 13 years to find the 26 new black hole candidates. Nine were known from earlier work. These black holes belong to the stellar-mass black hole category, which means they were created when a massive star collapsed and are about 5 to 10 times the mass of the Sun.

Source: The Daily Galaxy

When a massive star exhausts its fuel, it collapses under its own gravity and produces a black hole, an object so dense that not even light can escape its gravitational grip. According to a new analysis by an astrophysicist at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), just before the black hole forms, the dying star may generate a distinct burst of light that will allow astronomers to witness the birth of a new black hole for the first time. (read more)

Source: Chandra

Galaxies NGC 4342 and NGC 4291.
Image credits: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO/A.Bogdan et al;
Infrared: 2MASS/UMass/IPAC-Caltech/ NASA/NSF.

New evidence from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory challenges prevailing ideas about how black holes grow in the centers of galaxies. Astronomers long have thought that a supermassive black hole and the bulge of stars at the center of its host galaxy grow at the same rate -- the bigger the bulge, the bigger the black hole. However, a new study of Chandra data has revealed two nearby galaxies with supermassive black holes that are growing faster than the galaxies themselves.(read more)

Source: Chandra

Image credits: NASA/CXC/UCDavis/W.Dawson et al.

The newly discovered galaxy cluster is called DLSCL J0916.2+2951 about 5200 million light years from Earth.  It is similar to the Bullet Cluster, the first system in which the separation of dark and normal matter was observed, but with some important differences. The newly discovered system has been nicknamed the "Musket Ball Cluster" because the cluster collision is older and slower than the Bullet Cluster.(read more)

Source: NASA Chandra

Artist impression of stellar-mass black hole IGR J17091.
Image credits: NASA/CXC/M.Weiss.

Astronomers using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory have clocked the fastest wind yet discovered blowing off a disk around a stellar-mass black hole. This result has important implications for understanding how this type of black hole behaves.

The record-breaking wind is moving about 20 million mph, or about 3 percent of the speed of light. This is nearly 10 times faster than had ever been seen from a stellar-mass black hole.

Stellar-mass black holes are born when extremely massive stars collapse. They typically weigh between five and 10 times the mass of the sun. The stellar-mass black hole powering this super wind is known as IGR J17091-3624, or IGR J17091 for short. (read more)

Source: NASA Chandra

Supermassive black hole Sagittarius A* at the center of the Milky Way.
Credits: X-ray: NASA/CXC/MIT/F. Baganoff et al.; Illustrations: NASA/CXC/M.Weiss

The giant black hole at the center of the Milky Way may be vaporizing and devouring asteroids, which could explain the frequent flares observed, according to astronomers using data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory.

For several years Chandra has detected X-ray flares about once a day from the supermassive black hole known as Sagittarius A*, or "Sgr A*" for short. The flares last a few hours with brightness ranging from a few times to nearly one hundred times that of the black hole's regular output. The flares also have been seen in infrared data from ESO's Very Large Telescope in Chile. (read more)

Source: Chandra

G350.1-0.3 is an exceptionally bright supernova remnant 15,000 light years from Earth.
Image credits: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO/I.Lovchinsky et al, IR: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

G350.1-0.3 is a supernova remnant located about 14,700 light years from Earth toward the center of the Milky Way.Vital clues about the devastating ends to the lives of massive stars can be found by studying the aftermath of their explosions.In its more than twelve years of science operations, NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has studied many of these supernova remnants sprinkled across the Galaxy.Vital clues about the devastating ends to the lives of massive stars can be found by studying the aftermath of their explosions. In its more than twelve years of science operations, NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has studied many of these supernova remnants sprinkled across the Galaxy. (learn more)

Source: Chandra CXC

Image credits: X-ray: NASA/CXC/BU/E.Blanton; Optical: ESO/VLT

Like wine in a glass, vast clouds of hot gas are sloshing back and forth in Abell 2052, a galaxy cluster located about 480 million light years from Earth. X-ray data (blue) from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory shows the hot gas in this dynamic system, and optical data (gold) from the Very Large Telescope shows the galaxies. The hot, X-ray bright gas has an average temperature of about 30 million degrees.(read more)

Source: Chandra

Credit: Optical: DSS; Illustration: NASA/CXC/M.Weiss

On the left, an optical image from the Digitized Sky Survey shows Cygnus X-1, outlined in a red box. Cygnus X-1 is located near large active regions of star formation in the Milky Way, as seen in this image that spans some 700 light years across. An artist's illustration on the right depicts what astronomers think is happening within the Cygnus X-1 system. Cygnus X-1 is a so-called stellar-mass black hole, a class of black holes that comes from the collapse of a massive star. The black hole pulls material from a massive, blue companion star toward it. This material forms a disk (shown in red and orange) that rotates around the black hole before falling into it or being redirected away from the black hole in the form of powerful jets. (read source)

Source: Chandra

30 Doradus.
Image credits: X-ray: NASA/CXC/PSU/L.Townsley et al.;
Infrared: NASA/JPL/PSU/L.Townsley et al.

Chandra has taken another outstanding image this time of the star-forming region, 30 Doradus, is one of the largest located close to the Milky Way that is found in the neighboring galaxy Large Magellanic Cloud. About 2,400 massive stars in the center of 30 Doradus, also known as the Tarantula Nebula, are producing intense radiation and powerful winds as they blow off material.(read more)

Source: Chandra CXC

RCW86 supernova remnant.
Image credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/B. Williams (NCSU)

Chandra, XMM-Newton, Spitzer, and WISE - combined to make a new discovery on a very old supernova remnant, in a location where Chinese astronomers witnessed an event in 185 AD, documenting a mysterious "guest star" that remained for 8 months. The data now revealed shows it was a Type Ia Supernova. (see source)

Source: Chandra CXC

G299.2-2.9 is a supernova remnant found about 16,000 light years from Earth.
Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/U. Texas at Arlington/S.Park et al, ROSAT;
Infrared: 2MASS/UMass/IPAC-Caltech/NASA/NSF

G299.2-2.9 is an intriguing supernova remnant found about 16,000 light years away in the Milky Way galaxy . Evidence points to G299.2-2.9 being the remains of a Type Ia supernova, where a white dwarf has grown sufficiently massive to cause a thermonuclear explosion. Because it is older than most supernova remnants caused by these explosions, at an age of about 4500 years, G299.2-2.9 provides astronomers with an excellent opportunity to study how these objects evolve over time. It also provides a probe of the Type Ia supernova explosion that produced this structure. (read more)