European Association for Astronomy Education

Source: Chandra

Credits: X-ray: NASA/CXC/CfA/S.Wolk; IR: NASA/JPL/CfA/S.Wolk

A nebula with active star formation about 9,200 light years from Earth. (read the hole story)

Source: NASA/CXC-Chandra

Image credits:X-ray: NASA/CXC/Univ of Hamburg/S.Schröter et al;
Optical: NASA/NSF/IPAC-Caltech/UMass/2MASS, UNC/CTIO/PROMPT;
Illustration: NASA/CXC/M.Weiss

A nearby star, named CoRoT-2a,  has a planet in close orbit around it. The separation between the star and planet is only about 3 percent of the distance between the Earth and the Sun, causing some exotic effects not seen in our solar system. Chandra has now found that the planet is under heavy X-ray bombardment from its star. (Read more)

Source: NASA Chandra

Spiral galaxy NGC 3393.
Image credits: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO/G.Fabbiano et al; Optical: NASA/STScI

Astronomers using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory discovered the first pair of supermassive black holes in a spiral galaxy similar to the Milky Way. Approximately 160 million light years from Earth, the pair is the nearest known such phenomenon. The black holes are located near the center of the spiral galaxy NGC 3393. Separated by only 490 light years, the black holes are likely the remnant of a merger of two galaxies of unequal mass a billion or more years ago. (read more)

Source: Science Magazine AAAS

Detailed view of the Milky Way's core.
Image credits: NASA/ESA/SSC/ CXC/ STScI

The Milky Way's center houses a supermassive black hole so sleepy that it probably hasn't swallowed a decent meal for years. Yet a growing body of evidence indicates that the now-dormant beast, about as massive as 4 million suns, fueled a firestorm of activity just a few million years ago, including the sustained emission of some of the highest energy radiation in the universe. A new study offers a dramatic explanation for these past fireworks: The sleeping giant woke when a smaller black hole from another galaxy smashed into it.(read more)

Source: NASA/Chandra

Composite image of galaxy NGC 3115.
Image credits: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Univ. of Alabama/K. Wong et al; Optical: ESO/VLT.

The flow of hot gas toward a black hole has been clearly imaged for the first time in X-rays. The observations from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory will help tackle two of the most fundamental problems in modern astrophysics: understanding how black holes grow and how matter behaves in their intense gravity.

The black hole is at the center of a large galaxy known as NGC 3115, which is located about 32 million light years from Earth. A large amount of previous data has shown material falling toward and onto black holes, but none with this clear a signature of hot gas.

By imaging the hot gas at different distances from this supermassive black hole, astronomers have observed a critical threshold where the motion of gas first becomes dominated by the black hole's gravity and falls inward. This distance from the black hole is known as the "Bondi radius." (read more)

Source: Chandra

Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/IUSS/A.De Luca et al; Optical: DSS

A spinning neutron star is tied to a mysterious tail - or so it seems. Astronomers using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory have found that this pulsar, known as PSR J0357+3205 (or PSR J0357 for short), apparently has a long, X-ray bright tail streaming away from it.

This composite image shows Chandra data in blue and Digitized Sky Survey data in yellow. The position of the pulsar at the upper right end of the tail is seen by mousing over the image. The two bright sources lying near the lower left end of the tail are both thought to be unrelated background objects located outside our galaxy.

PSR J0357 was originally discovered by the Fermi Gamma Ray Space Telescope in 2009. Astronomers calculate that the pulsar lies about 1,600 light years from Earth and is about half a million years old, which makes it roughly middle-aged for this type of object.

If the tail is at the same distance as the pulsar then it stretches for 4.2 light years in length. This would make it one of the the longest X-ray tails ever associated with a so-called "rotation-powered" pulsar, a class of pulsar that get its power from the energy lost as the rotation of the pulsar slows down. (Other types of pulsars include those driven by strong magnetic fields and still others that are powered by material falling onto the neutron star.)

The Chandra data indicate that the X-ray tail may be produced by emission from energetic particles in a pulsar wind, with the particles produced by the pulsar spiraling around magnetic field lines.

Other X-ray tails around pulsars have been interpreted as bow-shocks generated by the supersonic motion of pulsars through space, with the wind trailing behind as its particles are swept back by the pulsar's interaction with the interstellar gas it encounters.

However, this bow-shock interpretation may or may not be correct for PSR J0357, with several issues that need to be explained. For example, the Fermi data show that PSR J0357 is losing a very small amount of energy as its spin slows down with time. This energy loss is important, because it is converted into radiation and powering a particle wind from the pulsar.

This places limits on the amount of energy that particles in the wind can attain, and so might not account for the quantity of X-rays seen by Chandra in the tail.

Another challenge to this explanation is that other pulsars with bow-shocks show bright X-ray emission surrounding the pulsar, and this is not seen for PSR J0357. Also, the brightest portion of the tail is well away from the pulsar and this differs from what has been seen for other pulsars with bow-shocks.

Further observations with Chandra could help test this bow-shock interpretation. If the pulsar is seen moving in the opposite direction from that of the tail, this would support the bow-shock idea.

These results were published in the June 1st, 2011 issue of The Astrophysical Journal. The first author is Andrea De Luca of Institute of Advanced Study in Pavia, Italy (IUSS), the National Institute of Nuclear Physics (INFN) in Rome, and the National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF) in Milano.

The co-authors are M. Marelli of INAF, Milano and the University of Insubria in Italy; R. Mignani of University College London, UK and University of Zielona Gora, Poland; P. Caraveo of INAF, Milano; W. Hummel of ESO, Germany; S. Collins and A. Shearer of National University of Ireland; P. Saz Parkinson of University of California at Santa Cruz; A. Belfiore of University of California at Santa Cruz and University of Pavia; and, G. Bignami of IUSS, Pavia and INAF, Milano.

Source: Chandra X-Ray Observatory

Illustration of Baby Black Hole.
Image credit: NASA/CXC/A.Hobart.

A composite image from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and Hubble Space Telescope (HST) combines the deepest X-ray, optical and infrared views of the sky. Using these images, astronomers have obtained the first direct evidence that black holes are common in the early Universe and shown that very young black holes grew more aggressively than previously thought. (read more)

Source: Penn State Live

Credit: ASA/CXC/PSU/L.Townsley et al.

According to a wealth of new data from NASA's X-ray Observatory, what scientists are calling a "supernova factory" has come to life in the Carina Nebula, located a mere 7,500 light years from Earth. This discovery may help astronomers to better understand how some of the Milky Way Galaxy's heaviest and youngest stars race through their lives and release newly-forged elements into their surroundings. (read more)

Related News
Carina Nebula: Nearby supernova factory ramps up

Source: NASA/Chandra

Image credit: NASA/CXC/PSU/L.Townsley et al.

A new Chandra image shows the Carina Nebula, a star-forming region in the Sagittarius-Carina arm of the Milky Way a mere 7,500 light years from Earth. Chandra's sharp X-ray vision has detected over 14,000 stars in this region, revealed a diffuse X-ray glow, and provided strong evidence that massive stars have already self-destructed in this nearby supernova factory.(read more)

Source: NASA News

Jets and radio-emitting lobes emanating from Centaurus A's central black hole.
Image credits: ESO/WFI (visible); NASA/CXC/CfA/R.Kraft et al. (X-ray);
MPIfR/ESO/APEX/A.Weiss et al. (microwave);

An international team, using radio telescopes located throughout the Southern Hemisphere has produced the most detailed image of particle jets erupting from a supermassive black hole in a nearby galaxy.

The new image shows a region less than 4.2 light-years across -- less than the distance between our sun and the nearest star. Radio-emitting features as small as 15 light-days can be seen, making this the highest-resolution view of galactic jets ever made. The study will appear in the June issue of Astronomy and Astrophysics and is available online.(read more)

Source: Chandra X-ray Observatory

Image credits: NASA/CXC/Chinese Academy of Sciences/F. Lu et al

This new image of Tycho's supernova remnant, dubbed Tycho for short, contains striking new evidence for what triggered the original supernova explosion, as seen from Earth in 1572. Tycho was formed by a Type Ia supernova, a category of stellar explosion used in measuring astronomical distances because of their reliable brightness. (read more)

Source: Chandra Blog

Chandra team has announced the launch of a new – and yet somewhat familiar -- project. “From Earth to the Solar System” has officially opened on April 25th. The team has put together a new collection of images from the Solar System.

Source: Chandra X-Ray Observatory

GRB 110328A. Image credit:NASA/CXC/Warwick/A.Levan et al.

An extraordinary gamma-ray burst, known as GRB110328A, has been observed by a team of NASA telescopes (Chandra, Hubble, and Swift). The source of GRB110328A appears to be a galaxy about 3.8 billion light years from Earth. arly analysis of the data suggests the burst may have been caused by a star torn apart by a supermassive black hole in the galaxy's center.(read source)

Source: NASA News

NASA's Swift, Hubble Space Telescope and Chandra X-ray Observatory have teamed up to study one of the most puzzling cosmic blasts yet observed. More than a week later, high-energy radiation continues to brighten and fade from its location.

Astronomers say they have never seen anything this bright, long-lasting and variable before. Usually, gamma-ray bursts mark the destruction of a massive star, but flaring emission from these events never lasts more than a few hours.

Although research is ongoing, astronomers say that the unusual blast likely arose when a star wandered too close to its galaxy's central black hole. Intense tidal forces tore the star apart, and the infalling gas continues to stream toward the hole. According to this model, the spinning black hole formed an outflowing jet along its rotational axis. A powerful blast of X- and gamma rays is seen if this jet is pointed in our direction. (read more)

Source: Chandra

Very deep Chandra observation of the Tycho supernova remnant.
Image credit: NASA/CXC/Rutgers/K.Eriksen et al.

A long Chandra observation of Tycho has revealed a pattern of X-ray "stripes" never seen before in a supernova remnant.

This result could explain how some of the extremely energetic particles bombarding the Earth, called cosmic rays, are produced.(read  source)

Source: Chandra

Image credit:
X-ray: NASA/CXC/CfA/J.Wang et al.;
Optical: Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes, La Palma/Jacobus Kapteyn Telescope,
Radio: NSF/NRAO/VLA

Chandra has released another marvellous picture. This composite image shows the central region of the spiral galaxy NGC 4151, dubbed the "Eye of Sauron" by astronomers for its similarity to the eye of the malevolent character in "The Lord of the Rings". (read more)

Source: NASA /Chandra

Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/xx; Optical: NASA/STScI; Illustration: NASA/CXC/M.Weiss

This composite image shows a beautiful X-ray and optical view of Cassiopeia A (Cas A), a supernova remnant located in our Galaxy about 11,000 light years away. These are the remains of a massive star that exploded about 330 years ago, as measured in Earth's time frame. X-rays from Chandra are shown in red, green and blue along with optical data from Hubble in gold.

At the center of the image is a neutron star, an ultra-dense star created by the supernova. Ten years of observations with Chandra have revealed a 4% decline in the temperature of this neutron star, an unexpectedly rapid cooling. Two new papers by independent research teams show that this cooling is likely caused by a neutron superfluid forming in its central regions, the first direct evidence for this bizarre state of matter in the core of a neutron star. (read more)

Source: NASA/Chandra

Arp 147 contains a spiral galaxy (right) that collided with an elliptical galaxy (left), triggering a wave of star formation.
Image credits: X-ray: NASA/CXC/MIT/S.Rappaport et al, Optical: NASA/STScI

Just in time for Valentine's Day comes a new image of a ring -- not of jewels -- but of black holes. This composite image of Arp 147, a pair of interacting galaxies located about 430 million light years from Earth, shows X-rays from the NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory (pink) and optical data from the Hubble Space Telescope (red, green, blue) produced by the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI). (read more)