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First X-rays from Uranus Discovered
Astronomers have detected X-rays from Uranus for the first time, using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. This result may help scientists learn more about this enigmatic ice giant planet in our solar system.
Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun and has two sets of rings around its equator. The planet, which has four times the diameter of Earth, rotates on its side, making it different from all other planets in the solar system. Since Voyager 2 was the only spacecraft to ever fly by Uranus, astronomers currently rely on telescopes much closer to Earth, like Chandra and the Hubble Space Telescope, to learn about this distant and cold planet that is made up almost entirely of hydrogen and helium.
In the new study, researchers used Chandra observations taken in Uranus in 2002 and then again in 2017. They saw a clear detection of X-rays from the first observation, just analyzed recently, and a possible flare of X-rays in those obtained fifteen years later. The main graphic shows a Chandra X-ray image of Uranus from 2002 (in pink) superimposed on an optical image from the Keck-I Telescope obtained in a separate study in 2004. The latter shows the planet at approximately the same orientation as it was during the 2002 Chandra observations.
What could cause Uranus to emit X-rays? The answer: mainly the Sun. Astronomers have observed that both Jupiter and Saturn scatter X-ray light given off by the Sun, similar to how Earth’s atmosphere scatters the Sun’s light. While the authors of the new Uranus study initially expected that most of the X-rays detected would also be from scattering, there are tantalizing hints that at least one other source of X-rays is present. If further observations confirm this, it could have intriguing implications for understanding Uranus.
One possibility is that the rings of Uranus are producing X-rays themselves, which is the case for Saturn’s rings. Uranus is surrounded by charged particles such as electrons and protons in its nearby space environment. If these energetic particles collide with the rings, they could cause the rings to glow in X-rays. Another possibility is that at least some of the X-rays come from auroras on Uranus, a phenomenon that has previously been observed on this planet at other wavelengths.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXO/University College London/W. Dunn et al; Optical: W.M. Keck Observatory
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A series of 2003 Chandra observations of the spiral galaxy NGC 1637 provided a dramatic view of a violent, restless nature that belies its serene optical image. Over a span of 21 months, intense neutron star and black hole X-ray sources flashed on and off, giving the galaxy the appearance of a cosmic Christmas tree.
Erratic, volatile behavior is a common characteristic of neutron stars or black holes with orbiting normal companion stars. Gas ripped off the normal star falls toward the compact star where the gas is compressed and heated by gravitational fields billions of times stronger than on the surface of the Sun. This process generates powerful X-radiation that can flare up and subside in a matter of seconds.
Image credit: NASA/CXC/Penn State/S. Immler et al.
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NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory is adding a new dimension to our understanding of space.
Using a new X-ray tomography method, researchers have created the first 3D maps of molecular clouds in the center of the Milky Way - dubbed the “Stone” and the “Sticks” clouds. They used Chandra data spanning two decades to create their 3D models of the Stone and Sticks molecular clouds. While astronomers typically only see two spatial dimensions of objects in space, the X-ray tomography method allows us to measure the third dimension of the cloud because the X-rays illuminate individual slices of the cloud over time.
Visual Description:
This release features a panoramic image, approximately 1,100 light-years across, of the center of our Milky Way Galaxy. Billowy clouds, in shades of mostly red and blue, stretch across the middle of the image which is much wider than it is tall. Toward the right side of the image is a tiny, bright ball of light. This ball of light is Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the core of our galaxy.
X-ray: NASA/CXC/UConn/D. Alboslani et al.; Infrared: NASA/ESA/JPL/CalTech/Herschel; NASA/ESA/JPL/CalTech/Spitzer; Radio: ASIAA/SAO/SMA; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/N. Wolk
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The 2002 Chandra image of the distant supernova remnant SNR G54.1+0.3 reveals a bright ring of high-energy particles with a central point-like source. This observation enabled scientists to use the giant Arecibo Radio Telescope to search for and locate the pulsar, or neutron star that powers the ring. The ring of particles and two jet-like structures appear to be due to the energetic flow of radiation and particles from the rapidly spinning neutron star rotating 7 times per second.
During the supernova event, the core of a massive star collapsed to form a neutron star that is highly magnetized and creates an enormous electric field as it rotates. The electric field accelerates particles near the neutron star and produces jets blasting away from the poles, and as a disk of matter and anti-matter flowing away from the equator at high speeds. As the equatorial flow rams into the particles and magnetic fields in the nebula, a shock wave forms. The shock wave boosts the particles to extremely high energies causing them to glow in X-rays and produce the bright ring (see inset).
The particles stream outward from the ring and the jets to supply the extended nebula, which spans approximately 6 light years.
The features observed in SNR G54.1+0.3 are very similar to other "pulsar wind nebulas" found by Chandra in the Crab Nebula, the Vela supernova remnant, and PSR B1509-58. By analyzing the similarities and differences between these objects, scientists hope to better understand the fascinating process of transforming the rotational energy of the neutron star into high-energy particles with very little frictional heat loss.
Image credit: NASA/CXC/U.Mass/F.Lu et al.
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The X-ray image of the quasar PKS 1127-145, a highly luminous source of X-rays and visible light about 10 billion light years from Earth, shows an enormous X-ray jet that extends at least a million light years from the quasar. The jet is likely due to the collision of a beam of high-energy electrons with microwave photons.
The high-energy beam is thought to have been produced by explosive activity related to gas swirling around a supermassive black hole. The length of the jet and the observed bright knots of X-ray emission suggest that the explosive activity is long-lived but intermittent.
On their way to Earth, the X-rays from the quasar pass through a galaxy located 4 billion light years away. Atoms of various elements in this galaxy absorb some of the X-rays, and produce a dimming of the quasar's X-rays, or an X-ray shadow. In a similar way, when our body is X-rayed, our bones produce an X-ray shadow. By measuring the amount of absorption astronomers were able to estimate that 4 billion years ago, the gas in the absorbing galaxy contained a much lower concentration of oxygen relative to hydrogen gas than does our galaxy - about 5 times lower. These observations will give astronomers insight into how the oxygen supply of galaxies is built up over the eons.
Image credit: NASA/CXC/A.Siemiginowska(CfA)/J.Bechtold(U.Arizona)
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This 2003 Chandra image of the quasar GB1508+5714 reveals a jet of high-energy particles that extends more than 100,000 light years from the supermassive black hole powering the quasar. At a distance of 12 billion light years from Earth, this was the most distant jet ever detected.
Image credit: NASA/CXC/A.Siemiginowska et al.; Illustration: NASA/CXC/M.Weiss
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X-rays from a rare type of supernova in the Whirpool Galaxy were recently observed, thanks to the fine resolution of NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. The team of researchers also detected a large number of point-like X-ray sources due to black holes and neutron stars in binary star systems.
Chandra's image highlights the energetic central regions of the two interacting galaxies, NGC 5194 (center) and its smaller companion (upper left) NGC 5195, that are collectively called the Whirlpool Galaxy.
The inset contains an expanded image of the central region of NGC 5194. Extending to the north and south of the bright nucleus are clouds of multimillion-degree gas, with diameters of about 1500 light years and 500 light years, respectively. The similarity of these features with ones observed at radio wavelengths suggests that the gas is heated by high-velocity jets produced near a supermassive black hole in the nucleus of the galaxy.
On the lower left of the inset image is a faint source identified with a supernova discovered in 1994 by amateur astronomers in Georgia, and subsequently determined to be an unusual Type Ic supernova. The massive stars responsible for these supernovas are thought to have lost their outer layers of hydrogen and helium gas thousands of years before the explosion, either through evaporation or transfer to a companion.
In the millennia before a doomed star explodes into a supernova, it loses mass. X-ray observations of the supernova shock wave provide a method to sensitively probe into this process. The Chandra data from SN 1994I and its surrounding area indicate that the progenitor star evaporated material into a cloud around the star that has a diameter at least 0.2 light years. Further monitoring over the years will tell just how large the cloud is, and how long the star was losing mass before it exploded.
Image credit: NASA/CXC/U.Md/A.Wilson et al.
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This composite X-ray (red/white) and optical (green/blue) image reveals an elongated cloud, or cocoon, of high-energy particles flowing behind the rapidly rotating pulsar, B1957+20 (white point-like source). The pulsar, a.k.a. the "Black Widow" pulsar, is moving through the galaxy at a speed of almost a million kilometers per hour. A bow shock wave due to this motion is visible to optical telescopes, shown in this image as the greenish crescent shape. The pressure behind the bow shock creates a second shock wave that sweeps the cloud of high-energy particles back from the pulsar to form the cocoon.
The Black Widow pulsar is emitting intense high-energy radiation that appears to be destroying a companion star through evaporation. It is one of a class of extremely rapid rotating neutron stars called millisecond pulsars.
These objects are thought to be very old neutron stars that have been spun up to rapid rotation rates with millisecond periods by pulling material off their companions. The steady push of the infalling matter on the neutron star spins it up in much the same way as pushing on a merry-go-round causes it to rotate faster.
The advanced age, very rapid rotation rate, and relatively low magnetic field of millisecond pulsars put them in a separate class from young pulsars, such as the Crab Nebula. Yet the Chandra data show that this billion-year-old rejuvenated pulsar is an extremely efficient generator of matter and antimatter particles, just like its younger cousins.
The key is the rapid rotation of B1957+20. The Chandra result confirms the theory that even a relatively weakly magnetized neutron star can generate intense electromagnetic forces and accelerate particles to high energies to create a pulsar wind, if it is rotating rapidly enough.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/ASTRON/B.Stappers et al.; Optical: AAO/J.Bland-Hawthorn & H.Jones
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Chandra's 2003 images of two distant massive galaxies show that they are enveloped by vast clouds of high-energy particles that are evidence for past explosive activity. In both galaxies radio and X-ray jets allow this activity to be traced back to central supermassive black holes. The jets are heating gas outside the galaxies in regions hundreds of thousands of light years across.
The Chandra data will help scientists understand how nature imposes a weight limit on the growth of the most massive galaxies in the universe. These galaxies reside in regions of space that contain an unusually large concentration of galaxies, gas and dark matter.
A massive galaxy and its central black hole grow through cannibalization of nearby galaxies and through accumulation of gas from intergalactic space. Eventually however, the infall of matter into the central supermassive black hole will produce an energetic jet, which will heat the surrounding gas and stop the growth of the galaxy at a few dozen times the mass of our Galaxy.
Another implication of this research is that a massive galaxy does not grow steadily, but in fits and starts. In the beginning of a growth cycle, the galaxy and its central black hole are accumulating matter. The energy generated by the jets that accompany the growth of the supermassive black hole eventually brings the infall of matter and the growth of the galaxy to a halt. The activity around the central black hole then ceases because of the lack of a steady supply of matter, and the jets disappear. Millions of years later the hot gas around the galaxy cools and resumes falling into the galaxy, initiating a new season of growth.
Image credit: NASA/CXC/Columbia/C.Scharf et al.
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The combined image from the Chandra and XMM-Newton X-ray observatories of RCW 86 shows the expanding ring of debris that was created after a massive star in the Milky Way collapsed onto itself and exploded. Both the Chandra and XMM images show low energy X-rays in red, medium energies in green and high energies in blue. The Chandra observations focused on the northeast (left-hand) side of RCW 86, and show that X-ray radiation is produced both by high-energy electrons accelerated in a magnetic field (blue) as well as heat from the blast itself (red).
Properties of the shell in the Chandra image, along with the remnant's size and a basic understanding of how supernovas expand, were used to help determine the age of RCW 86. The new data revealed that RCW 86 was created by a star that exploded about 2,000 years ago. This age matches observations of a new bright star by Chinese astronomers in 185 A.D. (and possibly Romans as well) and may be the oldest known recordings of a supernova. Supernova explosions in galaxies like ours are rare, and none have been recorded in hundreds of years.
Image credit: NASA/CXC/Univ. of Utrecht/J.Vink et al. XMM-Newton: ESA/Univ. of Utrecht/J.Vink et al.
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A 2003 Chandra observation revealed X-rays produced by TWA 5B, a brown dwarf orbiting a young binary star system known as TWA 5A. The star system is 180 light years from the Earth and a member of a group of about a dozen young stars in the constellation Hydra. The brown dwarf orbits the binary star system at a distance about 2.75 times that of Pluto's orbit around the Sun.
The sizes of the sources in the image are due to an instrumental effect that causes the spreading of pointlike sources. For a comparison of the actual size of TWA 5B to the Sun and the planet Jupiter, see the illustration below.
Brown dwarfs are often referred to as "failed stars" because they are under the mass limit (about 80 Jupiter masses, or 8 percent of the mass of the Sun) needed to spark the nuclear fusion of hydrogen to helium which supplies the energy for stars such as the Sun. Lacking any central energy source, brown dwarfs are intrinsically faint and draw their energy from a very gradual shrinkage or collapse.
Young brown dwarfs, like young stars, have turbulent interiors. When combined with rapid rotation, this turbulent motion can lead to a tangled magnetic field that can heat their upper atmospheres, or coronas, to a few million degrees Celsius. The X-rays from both TWA 5A and TWA 5B are from their hot coronas.
TWA 5B is estimated to be only between 15 and 40 times the mass of Jupiter, making it one of the least massive brown dwarfs known. Its mass is rather near the boundary (about 12 Jupiter masses) between planets and brown dwarfs, so these results could have implications for the possible X-ray detection of very massive planets around stars.
Image credit: NASA/CXC/Chuo U./Y.Tsuboi et al.
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When three galaxies collide, what happens to the huge black holes at the centers of each? A new study using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and several other telescopes reveals new information about how many black holes are furiously growing after these galactic smash ups.
Astronomers want to learn more about galactic collisions because the subsequent mergers are a key way that galaxies and the giant black holes in their cores grow over cosmic time.
“There have been many studies of what happens to supermassive black holes when two galaxies merge,” said Adi Foord of Stanford University, who led the study. “Ours is one of the first to systematically look at what happens to black holes when three galaxies come together.”
She and her colleagues identified triple galaxy merger systems by cross-matching the archives – containing data that is now publicly available – of NASA’s WISE mission and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) to the Chandra archive. Using this method they found seven triple galaxy mergers located between 370 million and one billion light years from Earth.
Using specialized software Foord developed for her Ph.D. at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, the team went through Chandra data targeting these systems to detect X-ray sources marking the location of growing supermassive black holes. As material falls toward a black hole, it gets heated to millions of degrees and produces X-rays.
Chandra, with its sharp X-ray vision, is ideal for detecting growing supermassive black holes in mergers. The associated X-ray sources are challenging to detect because they are usually close together in images and are often faint. Foord’s software was developed specifically to find such sources. Data from other telescopes was then used to rule out other possible origins of the X-ray emission unrelated to supermassive black holes.
The results from Foord and the team show that out of seven triple galaxy mergers there is one with a single growing supermassive black hole, four with double growing supermassive black holes, and one that is a triple. The final triple merger they studied seems to have struck out with no X-ray emission detected from the supermassive black holes. In the systems with multiple black holes, the separations between them range between about 10,000 and 30,000 light years.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Univ. of Michigan/A. Foord et al.; Optical: SDSS & NASA/STScI
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Chandra's unique ability to precisely locate and resolve individual X-ray sources in 12 globular clusters in our Galaxy has given astronomers a crucial clue as to the origin of these sources. Two clusters, known as NGC 6266 (or M62) and NGC 7099 (or M30), are shown here in this 2003 image.
A globular cluster is a spherical collection of hundreds of thousands and even millions of stars buzzing around each other in a gravitationally bound stellar beehive that is about a hundred light years in diameter. The stars in a globular cluster are often only about a tenth of a light year apart. For comparison, the nearest star to the Sun, Proxima Centauri, is 4.2 light years away.
Most of the point-like sources in these images are binary star systems containing a collapsed star, such as a neutron star or a white dwarf star, that is pulling matter off a normal companion star. While direct, head-on collisions between stars are rare even in these crowded circumstances, close encounters occur and can lead to the formation of binary star systems containing a collapsed star.
The images illustrate a general trend observed for globular clusters. Clusters such as M62 where the stars are packed very closely together and the rate of close encounters is high have more X-ray binaries than those such as M30 in which close encounters occur less often. This is strong evidence that the X-ray binaries in globular clusters are formed by close encounters.
Image credit: NASA/CXC/MIT/D.Pooley et al.
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This 2002 Chandra image shows the central region - about 1.5 million light years across - of the Coma Cluster. The cluster contains thousands of galaxies enveloped by a vast 100 million-degree Celsius gas cloud.
Of particular interest are the concentrations of cooler (10 to 20 million-degrees) gas around the large galaxies NGC 4889 (left) and NGC 4874 (right). These clumps of gas, which are 10,000 light years in diameter, are thought to be produced by matter ejected from stars in the galaxies over a period of about a billion years.
Image credit: NASA/CXC/SAO/A.Vikhlinin et al.
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2003 Chandra observations reveal evidence of high-speed winds blowing gas away from the supermassive black hole that powers the quasar APM 08279+5255. This discovery suggests that such winds may play a key role in regulating the growth of supermassive black holes in the centers of galaxies.
The Chandra data imply that the wind is blowing away from the black hole at speeds as high as 40 percent of the speed light, considerably faster than predicted. As gas swirls in a disk toward the black hole, it is heated to millions of degrees Celsius and produces intense X-radiation. The pressure of the X-rays pushes matter away from the inner part of the disk in much the same way as pressure from a garden hose pushes dirt off a driveway. This radiation pressure effect can significantly limit the amount of matter captured by the black hole.
The double image of APM 08279 is caused by the bending of its light by an intervening galaxy, an effect called gravitational lensing. This effect also magnifies the light of the quasar 100 fold allowing for a detailed study of its properties even though it is 12 billion light.
Image credit: CXC/M.Weiss; X-ray: NASA/CXC/PSU/G.Chartas
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Observations with NASA's Chandra, Swift, and Rossi X-ray observatories, Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, and ESA's XMM-Newton have revealed that a slowly rotating neutron star with an ordinary surface magnetic field is giving off bursts of X-rays and gamma rays. This discovery may indicate the presence of an internal magnetic field much more intense than the surface magnetic field, with implications for how the most powerful magnets in the cosmos evolve.
The neutron star, SGR 0418+5729, was discovered on June 5, 2009 when the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope detected bursts of gamma-rays from this object. Follow-up observations four days later with the Rossi X-Ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) showed that, in addition to sporadic X-ray bursts, the neutron star exhibits persistent X-ray emission with regular pulsations that indicate that the star has a rotational period of 9.1 seconds. RXTE was able to monitor this activity for about 100 days. This behavior is similar to a class of neutron stars called magnetars, which have strong to extreme magnetic fields 20 to 1000 times above the average of the galactic radio pulsars.
As neutron stars rotate, the radiation of low frequency electromagnetic waves or winds of high-energy particles carry energy away from the star, causing the rotation rate of the star to gradually decrease. Careful monitoring of SGR 0418 was possible because Chandra and XMM-Newton were able to measure its pulsation period even though it faded by a factor of 10 after the initial detection. What sets SGR 0418 apart from other magnetars is that careful monitoring over a span of 490 days has revealed no detectable decrease in its rotation rate.
The lack of rotational slowing implies that the radiation of low frequency waves must be weak, and hence the surface magnetic field must be much weaker than normal. But this raises another question: where does the energy come from to power bursts and the persistent X-ray emission from the source?
The generally accepted answer for magnetars is that the energy to power the X- and gamma-ray emission comes from an internal magnetic field that has been twisted and amplified in the turbulent interior of the neutron star, as depicted in the illustration above. Theoretical studies indicate that if the internal field becomes about ten or more times stronger than the surface field, the decay or untwisting of the field can lead to the production of steady and bursting X-ray emission through the heating of the neutron star crust or the acceleration of particles.
A crucial question is how large an imbalance can be maintained between the surface and interior fields. SGR 0418 represents an important test case. The observations already imply an imbalance of between 50 and 100. If further observations by Chandra push the surface magnetic field limit lower, then theorists may have to dig deeper for an explanation of this enigmatic object.
This discovery is the result of an international teamwork from CSIC-IEEC, INAF, University of Padua, MSSL-UCL, CEA-Saclay, Sabanci University and NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC). These results appear in the October 14th issue of Science Express, which provides electronic publication of selected Science papers in advance of print. NASA's MSFC in Huntsville, Ala., manages the Chandra program for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory controls Chandra's science and flight operations from Cambridge, Mass.
Credits: CXC/M. Weiss
Read entire caption/view more images: chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2010/sgr0418/
Caption credit: Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
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p.s. You can see all of our Chandra photos in the Chandra Group in Flickr at: www.flickr.com/groups/chandranasa/ We'd love to have you as a member!
Description: This image of M101 is a composite of data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, Spitzer Space Telescope, and Hubble Space Telescope. Sources of X-rays detected by Chandra (colored blue) include million-degree gas, the debris from exploded stars, and material zooming around black holes and neutron stars. Spitzer's view in infrared light (red) highlights the heat emitted by dust lanes in the galaxy where stars can form. Finally, most of the visible light data from Hubble (yellow) come from stars that trace the same spiral structure as the dust lanes.
Creator/Photographer: Chandra X-ray Observatory
NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, which was launched and deployed by Space Shuttle Columbia on July 23, 1999, is the most sophisticated X-ray observatory built to date. The mirrors on Chandra are the largest, most precisely shaped and aligned, and smoothest mirrors ever constructed. Chandra is helping scientists better understand the hot, turbulent regions of space and answer fundamental questions about origin, evolution, and destiny of the Universe. The images Chandra makes are twenty-five times sharper than the best previous X-ray telescope. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., manages the Chandra program for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory controls Chandra science and flight operations from the Chandra X-ray Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Medium: Chandra telescope x-ray
Date: 2009
Persistent URL: chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2009/m101/
Repository: Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory
Gift line: X-ray: NASA/CXC/JHU/K.Kuntz et al.; Optical: NASA/ESA/STScI/JHU/K. Kuntz et al; IR: NASA/JPL-Caltech/STScI/K. Gordon
Accession number: m101_br_comp
Description: A long Chandra observation of the Kepler supernova remnant provides unprecedented detail of one of the youngest supernovas in the Galaxy. Studying the debris of this exploded star helps in the understanding of how a star's life can end catastrophically. Red in this image shows material heated by the explosion, while yellow and green depict different elements in the ejecta. Blue represents the highest-energy X-rays and shows a shock front generated by the supernova explosion.
Creator/Photographer: Chandra X-ray Observatory
NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, which was launched and deployed by Space Shuttle Columbia on July 23, 1999, is the most sophisticated X-ray observatory built to date. The mirrors on Chandra are the largest, most precisely shaped and aligned, and smoothest mirrors ever constructed. Chandra is helping scientists better understand the hot, turbulent regions of space and answer fundamental questions about origin, evolution, and destiny of the Universe. The images Chandra makes are twenty-five times sharper than the best previous X-ray telescope. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., manages the Chandra program for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory controls Chandra science and flight operations from the Chandra X-ray Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Medium: Chandra telescope x-ray
Date: 2006
Persistent URL: chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2007/kepler/
Repository: Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory
Collection: Supernovas and Supernova Remnants Collection
Gift line: NASA/CXC/NCSU/S.Reynolds et al.
Accession number: kepler
Description: The bright arcs in this Chandra image show low-energy X-rays (0.1 - 10 kilo electron volts) generated during auroral activity. The image - seen here superimposed on a simulated image of Earth - is from an approximately 20-minute scan during which Chandra was pointed at a fixed point in the sky while the Earth's motion carried the auroral region through the field of view. Auroras are produced by solar storms that disturb Earth's magnetic field and accelerate electrons which speed along the magnetic field into the polar regions. There the electrons collide with atoms high in Earth's atmosphere and emit X-rays.
Creator/Photographer: Chandra X-ray Observatory
NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, which was launched and deployed by Space Shuttle Columbia on July 23, 1999, is the most sophisticated X-ray observatory built to date. The mirrors on Chandra are the largest, most precisely shaped and aligned, and smoothest mirrors ever constructed. Chandra is helping scientists better understand the hot, turbulent regions of space and answer fundamental questions about origin, evolution, and destiny of the Universe. The images Chandra makes are twenty-five times sharper than the best previous X-ray telescope. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., manages the Chandra program for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory controls Chandra science and flight operations from the Chandra X-ray Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Medium: Chandra telescope x-ray
Date: 2005
Repository: Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory
Gift line: NASA/MSFC/CXC/A.Bhardwaj & R.Elsner, et al.; Earth model: NASA/GSFC/L.Perkins & G.Shirah
Accession number: earth
NGC 602 is a young, bright open cluster of stars located in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), a satellite galaxy to the Milky Way. It is embedded in a nebula known as N90.NGC 602 contains three main condensations of stars. The central core is NGC 602a, with the compact NGC 602b 100 arc-seconds to the NNW. NGC 602c is a looser grouping 11 arc-minutes to the NE, which includes the WO star AB8.
Technical Details-
Filters:
Hubble Optical - ACS/WFC F555W (Blue)
Hubble Optical - ACS/WFC F555W + F814W (Green)
Hubble Optical - ACS/WFC F658N + F814W (Red)
Chandra X-ray(Purple)
Spitzer Infrared - IRAC 8 micron(red)
Image Credits: NASA/CXC/JPL-Caltech/STScI
Processing and copyright : AMAL BIJU
Free download under CC Attribution ( CC BY 4.0) Please credit the artist and rawpixel.com.
Higher resolutions with no attribution required can be downloaded: www.rawpixel.com/category/public_domain
I use this in conjunction with a lot of other pictures available online. The story I try and tell is about a star's material being pulled inward by gravity and outward by the energy produced by nuclear fusion. The stages in the life of the star are caused by changes in this balance.
The periodic table: the first 92 of these elements are created by stars from the first, hydrogen:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Periodic_table#/media/File:18-colum...
The life cycle of our sun:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_life_cycle_of_a_Sun-like_s...
A nebula that can form stars:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_spectacular_star-form...
The birth of a star: commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Witness_the_Birth_of_a_St...
Overcoming the repulsion of nuclei is important for nuclear fusion
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fusion#mediaviewer/File:Nuc...
Diagram of nuclear fusion
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Deuterium-tritium_fusion.svg
Sizes of planets compared to stars
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SolarSystem_OrdersOfMagni...
How much the sun will grow one day
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sun_red_giant.svg
A dying red giant
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Seeing_into_the_Heart_of_Mira_...
Another dying red giant, showing a planetary nebula
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NGC_6326_by_Hubble_Space_Teles...
A white dwarf
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Size_IK_Peg.png
Life cycle of larger mass stars:
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Formacion_de_agujero_negr...
Final element makeup of a large star before a supernova
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Evolved_star_fusion_shells.svg
Why splitting some atoms releases energy but fusing others also releases energy
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_binding_energy#/media/File:...
A supernova
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:SN1994D.jpg
Another supernova, that we've been watching for 1000 years
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Crab_Nebula.jpg
A neutron star drawn to scale against Manhattan
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Neutron_Star_Manhattan.ogv
Makeup of a neutron star
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Neutron_star_cross_section.svg
Image containing a neutron star
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PIA18848-PSRB1509-58-ChandraXR...
Black holes distort the image of what's behind them
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:BlackHole_Lensing.gif
X-Ray flare from black hole:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:X-RayFlare-BlackHole-MilkyWay-...
The Solar System is much more than a collection of
planets, moons, comets, and asteroids. It is our home
in the cosmos.
The Solar System's only star, which we call the Sun,
plays a role in nearly every aspect of our cosmic neighborhood.
The 8 planets, including Earth, all revolve around the
Sun. No two planets are alike.
There are hundreds of moons in our Solar System,
many are intriguing worlds waiting to be explored.
Comets are Solar System interlopers, bringing information
from the very edge of the Solar System.
Our Solar System resides in a spiral arm of the Milky
Way Galaxy, where our Sun is one among billions of
other stars.
The search for evidence of life, past and maybe even
present, is the study of astrobiology.
From Earth to the Solar System (FETTSS) provides
a few snapshots of the wonders contained within this
unique system, the likes of which we have yet to discover
anywhere else in the Universe. www.facebook.com/fettss
Watch this video on Vimeo. Video created by cxcpub.
@NASAGoddard : @NASA NASA is learning about black holes using information from @NASAHubble,@chandraxray @NASAFermi, and @NASAspitzer. t.co/UXPetPKI6E (via Twitter twitter.com/NASAGoddard/status/934140405775503360)
@NASAGoddard : RT @NASAblueshift: Things are heating up in binary star system HD 5980! This couple of old stars, the bright pink dot in this image from @chandraxray, are swinging around each other doing Newton's gravitational tango in a heart-shaped cloud of gas. #ValentinesDay t.co/uGghUOvu3N t.co/THMgbRJHhA (via Twitter twitter.com/NASAGoddard/status/963863496202080257)
☁️ #Xmas day ⛅️1/15/6℃乾燥
に🆚行政との戦い相談は平行線…弱者は #生きるのがつらい いろいろ弱いのに😓 #寒け 37.3℃ #風邪 #肺痛 中🏠 #過酷 #苦悩 #LastXmas も関係ない苦痛狂人厳寒地獄家🔥熱い怖い🏥📄しか #笑顔 会話が必要…わたしにXmasに…🆚 #疲弊 🏠14-17℃
12.25 #MerryXmas 🎅 #Tired #Night (Not #SilentNight ) 15℃old⛅️Merry #Xmas But...🆚 #Consultation 😓 #Anguish Cold
20-23:00📻 #RADIO #救い #古坂大魔王 #でか美ちゃん #Santa 🎅😊
"Last Christmas, I gave you my heart
But the very next day you gave it away
This year, to save me from tears
I'll give it to someone special" #Wham!
@NASA tweet ↕️Same
"Last Christmas, @ChandraXray gave us a cluster of stars. This year, new telescope views (combined with Chandra data) gave us something special: go.nasa.gov/3DI9H2s "
x.com/nasa/status/1871606065605054631
@y4uk 24:54
「12.25🌃📻救😌 #Xmas ⛅️1/15/6℃🆚行政😨障害孤独 #風邪 #肺痛 #疲弊 🏠苦悩家🎄#NASA ↕️ #Same"Last Christmas, I gave you my heart. But the very next day.. This year, to save me from tears, I'll give it to someone special" #Wham! 🎅 flic.kr/p/2qBNvUE 『Last Christmas』 amzn.to/405otsZ 」
x.com/y4uk/status/1871947643179634802
25:15 #生きるのがつらい Xmasに🆚障相…厳寒…今日を逃せば1ヶ月後…肺炎狂いの親…障害の弱さで動けない…繰り返しの結果…笑顔の会話が必要…そこから #positive 生まれる #lonely は #寒さ はつらい #pain 😓
Teamwork makes the dream work. 💫
@ChandraXRay and @NASAWebb joined forces to create this composite image of the Tarantula Nebula. This stunning visual serves as one example of the magic that results from coming together. We were #MadeToConnect.
Who is the Webb to your Chandra?
@NASAGoddard : @oPhryme @NASA @chandraxray Two clusters of galaxies have crashed into one another, producing a giant wave twice th… t.co/08CA23o84U (via Twitter twitter.com/NASAGoddard/status/859806109745516546)
If you got it, haunt it.
The "bones" of a ghostly cosmic hand from a pulsar wind nebula have been revealed by our @ChandraXRay and IXPE space telescopes:
@NASAGoddard : @Paul_pqd @NASA @NASAHubble @chandraxray @NASAFermi @NASAspitzer @beanykelly Things only get weird if you're within a few horizon radii of the black hole. Then gravity's nonlinearity means there are no more stable orbits. - Bernard Kelly, Gravitational Astrophysics Laboratory @beanykelly 2/2 (via Twitter twitter.com/NASAGoddard/status/934898071170961409)
@NASAGoddard : @B1zzle @chandraxray It’s a huge wave of gas, a bit like giant version of waves on the ocean. /sw #asknasa (via Twitter twitter.com/NASAGoddard/status/859472792261197826)
@NASAGoddard : RT @NASA: Ask experts about a 200,000 light-year wave @ChandraXray found in the Perseus cluster NOW - 3pm ET by using… t.co/SGZKqtsO81 (via Twitter twitter.com/NASAGoddard/status/859458530184757248)
Favorite tweet:
Exploded star blooms like a cosmic flower! @ChandraXray observes supernova remnant: t.co/U3cqP1dvw6 ift.tt/1A1OVjM
— NASA (@NASA) February 12, 2015