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There are several clouds of superheated gas, seen by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, that are merging in the Abell 2125 galaxy cluster. X-rays from Chandra (purple and white); optical from Kitt Peak (gold)
Visual Description:
In this composite image of the Abell 2125 galaxy cluster, several clouds of superheated gas surround a bright, gleaming galaxy. Here, the entire image is speckled with glowing golden yellow and neon purple dots, individual galaxies within the cluster. At the center of the frame is the largest and brightest dot, a golden galaxy emitting four diffraction spikes. Surrounding this galaxy are translucent neon purple gas clouds, representing X-rays observed by Chandra. Faint pockets of X-ray gas are found throughout the image, but the most prominent clouds flank the central galaxy at our upper left and lower right.
Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: NSF/NOIRLab/KPNO/F. Owen; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/J. Major, K. Arcand
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This is a composite image of X-rays from Chandra and optical data from Hubble of the galaxy cluster ACT-CL J0102-4915, located about 7 billion light years from Earth. This cluster has been nicknamed "El Gordo" (or, "the fat one" in Spanish) because of its gigantic mass.
Scientists first announced the discovery of El Gordo with Chandra and ground-based optical telescopes in 2012. They determined that El Gordo is the most massive, the hottest, and gives off the most X-rays of any known galaxy cluster at its distance or beyond.
New data from the Hubble Space Telescope suggests El Gordo weighs as much as 3 million billion times the mass of our Sun. This is about 43 percent higher than the original estimate based on the X-ray data and dynamical studies.
The new Hubble study determined that most of the mass is hidden away as dark matter. The location of the dark matter is mapped out in this composite in blue. Because dark matter doesn't emit any radiation, astronomers instead precisely measure how its gravity warps the images of far background galaxies like a funhouse mirror. This allowed them to come up with a mass estimate for the cluster. Chandra's X-ray data are shown in pink and these have been overlaid on optical data from Hubble that shows the individual galaxies in the cluster as well as stars in the field of view.
The X-ray image of El Gordo reveals a distinct cometary appearance. Along with the optical data, this shows that El Gordo is, in fact, the site of two galaxy clusters running into one another at several million miles per hour. This and other characteristics make El Gordo akin to the well-known object called the Bullet Cluster, which is located almost 4 billion light years closer to Earth.
As with the Bullet Cluster, there is evidence that normal matter, mainly composed of hot, X-ray bright gas, has been wrenched apart from the dark matter in El Gordo. The hot gas in each cluster was slowed down by the collision, but the dark matter was not.
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 in Cambridge, Mass., controls Chandra's science and flight operations.
Original caption/more images: chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2014/elgordo/
Image credit: NASA, ESA, J. Jee (Univ. of California, Davis), J. Hughes (Rutgers Univ.), F. Menanteau (Rutgers Univ. & Univ. of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign), C. Sifon (Leiden Obs.), R. Mandelbum (Carnegie Mellon Univ.), L. Barrientos (Univ. Catolica de Chile), and K. Ng (Univ. of California, Davis)
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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!
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These official NASA photographs are being made available for publication by news organizations and/or for personal use printing by the subject(s) of the photographs. The photographs may not be used in materials, advertisements, products, or promotions that in any way suggest approval or endorsement by NASA. All Images used must be credited. For information on usage rights please visit: www.nasa.gov/audience/formedia/features/MP_Photo_Guidelin...
This composite image shows a supernova within the galaxy M100 that may contain the youngest known black hole in our cosmic neighborhood. In this image, Chandra’s X-rays are colored gold, while optical data from ESO’s Very Large Telescope are shown in red, green, and blue, and infrared data from Spitzer are red. The location of the supernova, known as SN 1979C, is labeled.
SN 1979C was first reported to be seen by an amateur astronomer in 1979. The galaxy M100 is located in the Virgo Cluster about 50 million light years from Earth. This approximately 30-year age, plus its relatively close distance, makes SN 1979C the nearest example where the birth of a black hole has been observed, if the interpretation by the scientists is correct.
Data from Chandra, as well as NASA's Swift, the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton and the German ROSAT observatory revealed a bright source of X-rays that has remained steady for the 12 years from 1995 to 2007 over which it has been observed. This behavior and the X-ray spectrum, or distribution of X-rays with energy, support the idea that the object in SN 1979C is a black hole being fed either by material falling back into the black hole after the supernova, or from a binary companion.
The scientists think that SN 1979C formed when a star about 20 times more massive than the Sun collapsed. It was a particular type of supernova where the exploded star had ejected some, but not all of its outer, hydrogen-rich envelope before the explosion, so it is unlikely to have been associated with a gamma-ray burst (GRB). Supernovas have sometimes been associated with GRBs, but only where the exploded star had completely lost its hydrogen envelope. Since most black holes should form when the core of a star collapses and a gamma-ray burst is not produced, this may be the first time that the common way of making a black hole has been observed.
The very young age of about 30 years for the black hole is the observed value, that is the age of the remnant as it appears in the image. Astronomers quote ages in this way because of the observational nature of their field, where their knowledge of the Universe is based almost entirely on the electromagnetic radiation received by telescopes.
Credits: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO/D.Patnaude et al, Optical: ESO/VLT, Infrared: NASA/JPL/Caltech
Read entire caption/view more images: chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2010/sn1979c/
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!
This 2000 Chandra X-ray image shows the relationship between the black hole Sagittarius A* and the supernova remnant Sagittarius A East, both of which are located in the center of our galaxy in the constellation Sagittarius. For the first time, astronomers using Chandra were able to separate the supernova remnant, Sgr A East, from other complex structures in the center of the Milky Way. The emission from the supernova remnant Sgr A East is depicted by the bright yellow and orange tones in the middle of this image. From the Chandra image, scientists can clearly see that Sgr A East surrounds Sgr A*, the Milky Way's central black hole found near the white dots in the lower-right portion of the central object.
With Chandra, astronomers found hot gas concentrated within the larger radio shell of Sgr A East. The gas is highly enriched by heavy elements, with four times more calcium and iron than the Sun, and that confirms earlier suspicions that Sgr A East is most likely a remnant of a supernova explosion. While dozens of supernova remnants are known in our galaxy, the proximity of Sgr A East to the black hole in the center of our galaxy makes it important. By detailing the association between Sgr A East and Sgr A*, astronomers hope to learn if this is an example of a common relationship between supernovas and black holes throughout the universe.
Image credit: NASA/Penn State/G.Garmire et al.
SNR 0509-67.5 is a supernova remnant located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy to the Milky Way about 160,000 light years away. This 2010 Chandra image of SNR 0509 shows soft green and blue hues of heated material from the X-ray data surrounded by the glowing pink optical shell which shows the ambient gas being shocked by the expanding blast wave from the supernova. Ripples in the shell's appearance coincide with brighter areas of the X-ray data.
Credit: NASA/CXC/SAO/J.Hughes et al
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NGC 3603 is a bustling region of star birth in the Carina spiral arm of the Milky Way galaxy, about 20,000 light years from Earth. For the first time, this 2001 Chandra image resolves the multitude of individual X-ray sources in this star-forming region. (The intensity of the X-rays observed by Chandra are depicted by the various colors in this image. Green represents lower intensity sources, while purple and red indicate increasing X-ray intensity.) Specifically, the Chandra image reveals dozens of extremely massive stars born in a burst of star formation about two million years ago.
This region's activities may be indicative of what is happening in other distant "starburst" galaxies (bright galaxies flush with new stars). In the case of NGC 3603, scientists now believe that these X rays are emitted from massive stars and stellar winds, since the stars are too young to have produced supernovas or have evolved into neutron stars. The Chandra observations of NGC 3603 may provide new clues about X-ray emission in starburst galaxies as well as star formation itself.
Image credit: NASA/GSFC/M.Corcoran et al.
Chandra is celebrating 10 years of operation. Here's a bright beauty from 2006.
This is a composite image of N49, the brightest supernova remnant in optical light in the Large Magellanic Cloud. The Chandra X-ray image (blue) shows million-degree gas in the center. Much cooler gas at the outer parts of the remnant is seen in the infrared image from Spitzer (red). While astronomers expected that dust particles were generating most of the infrared emission, the study of this object indicates that much of the infrared is instead generated in heated gas.
The unique filamentary structure seen in the optical image by Hubble (white & yellow) has long set N49 apart from other well understood supernova remnants, as most supernova remnants appear roughly circular in visible light. Recent mapping of molecular clouds suggests that this supernova remnant is expanding into a denser region to the southeast, which would cause its asymmetrical appearance. This idea is confirmed by the Chandra data. Although X-rays reveal a round shell of emission, the X-rays also show brightening in the southeast, confirming the idea of colliding material in that area.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Caltech/S.Kulkarni et al.; Optical: NASA/STScI/UIUC/Y.H.Chu & R.Williams et al.; IR: NASA/JPL-Caltech/R.Gehrz et al.
Read more about this image:
www.chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2006/n49/
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When astronomers discovered the galaxy cluster ACT-CL J0102-4915 in 2012 with NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and ground-based optical telescopes, they nicknamed it "El Gordo" (Spanish for the "Fat One") because of its gigantic mass. Scientists estimate that El Gordo contains as much as 3 million billion (3,000,000,000,000,000) times the mass of the Sun. Thanks to its heft, El Gordo acts as a natural lens, distorting the light from more distant objects behind it through a process known as gravitational lensing.
A new composite image of El Gordo shows the diffuse, superheated gas in the cluster observed in X-rays from Chandra (blue) that have been combined with a new infrared image from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (red, green, and blue). Webb's image shows galaxies in El Gordo plus background galaxies located further away from Earth. El Gordo is located about 7.3 billion light-years from Earth and the background galaxies are at a range of different distances including several that are 12.3 billion light-years from Earth. The appearance of some of the background galaxies has been distorted into a variety of unusual and highly elongated shapes because of gravitational lensing by the cluster.
The X-ray image of El Gordo reveals a distinct cometary appearance. Along with optical data, astronomers reported in 2012 that this shape implies El Gordo is, in fact, the site of two galaxy clusters that ran into one another at several million miles per hour. The same study also used Chandra and other observatories to show that El Gordo is the most massive, and produces the most X-rays, of any known galaxy cluster at its distance or beyond.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Rutgers/J. Hughes et al.; Infrared: NASA/ESA/CSA, J.M. Diego (IFCA), B.Frye (Univ. of Arizona), P.Kamieneski, T.Carleton & R.Windhorst (ASU); Image processing: X-ray: L. Frattare; J. Major, K.Arcand (SAO). Infrared: A.Pagan (STScI), J.Summers (ASU), J.C.J.D'Silva (UWA), A.M.Koekemoer (STScI), A.Robotham (UWA), R.Windhorst (ASU)
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Three new sonifications of images from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and other telescopes have been released. Sonification is the process of translating data into sounds. In the case of Chandra and other telescopes, scientific data are collected from space as digital signals that are commonly turned into visual imagery. The sonification project takes these data through another step of mapping the information into sound.
The first sonification, IC 443 is a supernova remnant, or the debris of an exploded star, which astronomers have nicknamed the Jellyfish Nebula. A visual composite image of IC 443 includes X-rays from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and German ROSAT X-ray telescope (blue) along with radio data from the NSF’s Very Large Array (green) and optical data from the Digitized Sky Survey (red). The sonification of IC 443 begins with a top-down scan as the brightness of the data is correlated to the volume of the sound. The sounds are mapped to colors in the image with red light being heard as lower pitches, the green as medium, and the blue light as the higher pitches. This creates notes that sweep up and down in pitch continuously. Several colors are isolated and control the volume of sustained tones with red controlling the lowest note and white controlling the highest note. The background stars in the optical image have been converted to water drop sounds in the sonification.
Started in 2020, the NASA sonification project built off of other Chandra projects aimed at reaching blind and visually-impaired audiences. It has since shown to be meaningful to that community but also impacts much wider audiences, finding listeners through traditional and social media around the world.
Credit: Chandra X-ray: NASA/CXC/B.Gaensler et al; ROSAT X-ray: NASA/ROSAT/Asaoka & Aschenbach; Radio Wide: NRC/DRAO/D.Leahy; Optical: DSS; Sonification: NASA/CXC/SAO/K.Arcand, SYSTEM Sounds (M. Russo, A. Santaguida)
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Chandra is celebrating 10 years of glorious x-ray photos of our Universe!
Ten years ago this week, NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory was launched aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia and successfully deployed into orbit, ushering in an unprecedented decade of discovery for the high-energy Universe. As one of NASA's "Great Observatories" -- along with the Hubble Space Telescope, Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory, and Spitzer Space Telescope -- Chandra has now doubled its original five-year mission. With its unrivaled ability to create high-resolution X- ray images, Chandra has enabled astronomers to investigate phenomena as diverse as comets, black holes, dark matter and dark energy.
Read more about this image:
chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2009/e0102/
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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!
Astronomers using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory have 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. This 2011 image of NGC 3393 show X-rays from Chandra.
Credit: NASA/CXC/SAO/G.Fabbiano et al;
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NGC 6946 is a medium-sized, face-on spiral galaxy about 22 million light years away from Earth. In the past century, eight supernovas have been observed to explode in the arms of this galaxy. Chandra observations (purple) have, in fact, revealed three of the oldest supernovas ever detected in X-rays, giving more credence to its nickname of the "Fireworks Galaxy." This composite image also includes optical data from the Gemini Observatory in red, yellow, and cyan.
Read entire captions/view all images: www.chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2013/archives/more.html
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/MSSL/R.Soria et al, Optical: AURA/Gemini OBs
Caption credit: Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
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These official NASA photographs are being made available for publication by news organizations and/or for personal use printing by the subject(s) of the photographs. The photographs may not be used in materials, advertisements, products, or promotions that in any way suggest approval or endorsement by NASA. All Images used must be credited. For information on usage rights please visit: www.nasa.gov/audience/formedia/features/MP_Photo_Guidelin...
On July 23, 1999, the Space Shuttle Columbia blasted off from the Kennedy Space Center carrying the Chandra X-ray Observatory. In the two decades that have passed, Chandra’s powerful and unique X-ray eyes have contributed to a revolution in our understanding of the cosmos.
NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory is commemorating its 20th anniversary with an assembly of new images. These images represent the breadth of Chandra’s exploration, demonstrating the variety of objects it studies as well as how X-rays complement the data collected in other types of light.
The colossal system Abell 2146 is the result of a collision and merger between two galaxy clusters. Astronomers think that galaxy clusters, the largest structures in the Universe held together by gravity, grow by colliding and merging with one another. Mergers of galaxy clusters are some of the most energetic events since the Big Bang. Chandra has observed many galaxy cluster mergers, giving scientists insight into how these mega-structures that dominate the Universe came to be.
In this image of Abell 2146, X-rays from Chandra (purple) show hot gas and optical data from the Hubble Space Telescope shows galaxies and stars. The bullet-shaped feature shows the hot gas from one cluster plowing through the hot gas in the other cluster.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Univ. of Waterloo/H. Russell et al.; Optical: NASA/STScI
Chandra's 2001 image of the elliptical NGC 4636 shows spectacular symmetric arms, or arcs, of hot gas extending 25,000 light years into a huge cloud of multimillion-degree-Celsius gas that envelopes the galaxy. At a temperature of 10 million degrees, the arms are 30 percent hotter than the surrounding gas cloud.
This year, NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory celebrates its 20th year in space exploring the extreme universe.
Credit: X-ray: NASA/SAO/CXC/C.Jones et al.
More about Chandra's 20th Anniversary
A Chandra composite image shows the distant and massive galaxy cluster that is officially known as XDCP J0044.0-2033.
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Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/INAF/P. Tozzi, et al; Optical: NAOJ/Subaru a
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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!
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These official NASA photographs are being made available for publication by news organizations and/or for personal use printing by the subject(s) of the photographs. The photographs may not be used in materials, advertisements, products, or promotions that in any way suggest approval or endorsement by NASA. All Images used must be credited. For information on usage rights please visit: www.nasa.gov/audience/formedia/features/MP_Photo_Guidelin...
This beautiful image gives a new look at Stephan's Quintet, a compact group of galaxies discovered about 130 years ago and located about 280 million light years from Earth. The curved, light blue ridge running down the center of the image shows X-ray data from the Chandra X-ray Observatory. Four of the galaxies in the group are visible in the optical image (yellow, red, white and blue) from the Canada-France- Hawaii Telescope. A labeled version identifies these galaxies (NGC 7317, NGC 7318a, NGC 7318b and NGC 7319) as well as a prominent foreground galaxy (NGC 7320) that is not a member of the group. The galaxy NGC 7318b is passing through the core of galaxies at almost 2 million miles per hour, and is thought to be causing the ridge of X- ray emission by generating a shock wave that heats the gas.
Additional heating by supernova explosions and stellar winds has also probably taken place in Stephan's Quintet. A larger halo of X-ray emission -- not shown here -- detected by ESA's XMM-Newton could be evidence of shock-heating by previous collisions between galaxies in this group. Some of the X-ray emission is likely also caused by binary systems containing massive stars that are losing material to neutron stars or black holes.
Stephan's Quintet provides a rare opportunity to observe a galaxy group in the process of evolving from an X-ray faint system dominated by spiral galaxies to a more developed system dominated by elliptical galaxies and bright X-ray emission. Being able to witness the dramatic effect of collisions in causing this evolution is important for increasing our understanding of the origins of the hot, X-ray bright halos of gas in groups of galaxies.
Stephan's Quintet shows an additional sign of complex interactions in the past, notably the long tails visible in the optical image. These features were probably caused by one or more passages through the galaxy group by NGC 7317.
Credits: X-ray: NASA/CXC/CfA/E. O'Sullivan Optical: Canada-France-Hawaii-Telescope/Coelum
Read more about this image:
chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2009/stephq/
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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!
Astronomers have used NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and a suite of other telescopes to reveal one of the most powerful black holes known. The black hole has created enormous structures in the hot gas surrounding it and prevented trillions of stars from forming.
The black hole is in a galaxy cluster named RX J1532.9+3021 (RX J1532 for short), located about 3.9 billion light years from Earth. The image here is a composite of X-ray data from Chandra revealing hot gas in the cluster in purple and optical data from the Hubble Space Telescope showing galaxies in yellow. The cluster is very bright in X-rays implying that it is extremely massive, with a mass about a quadrillion - a thousand trillion - times that of the sun. At the center of the cluster is a large elliptical galaxy containing the supermassive black hole.
The large amount of hot gas near the center of the cluster presents a puzzle. Hot gas glowing with X-rays should cool, and the dense gas in the center of the cluster should cool the fastest. The pressure in this cool central gas is then expected to drop, causing gas further out to sink in towards the galaxy, forming trillions of stars along the way. However, astronomers have found no such evidence for this burst of stars forming at the center of this cluster.
This problem has been noted in many galaxy clusters but RX J1532 is an extreme case, where the cooling of gas should be especially dramatic because of the high density of gas near the center. Out of the thousands of clusters known to date, less than a dozen are as extreme as RX J1532. The Phoenix Cluster is the most extreme, where, conversely, large numbers of stars have been observed to be forming.
What is stopping large numbers of stars from forming in RX J1532? Images from the Chandra X-ray Observatory and the NSF's Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) have provided an answer to this question. The X-ray image shows two large cavities in the hot gas on either side of the central galaxy. The Chandra image has been specially processed to emphasize the cavities. Both cavities are aligned with jets seen in radio images from the VLA. The location of the supermassive black hole between the cavities is strong evidence that the supersonic jets generated by the black hole have drilled into the hot gas and pushed it aside, forming the cavities.
Shock fronts - akin to sonic booms - caused by the expanding cavities and the release of energy by sound waves reverberating through the hot gas provide a source of heat that prevents most of the gas from cooling and forming new stars.
The cavities are each about 100,000 light years across, roughly equal to the width of the Milky Way galaxy. The power needed to generate them is among the largest known in galaxy clusters. For example, the power is almost 10 times greater than required to create the well-known cavities in Perseus.
Although the energy to power the jets must have been generated by matter falling toward the black hole, no X-ray emission has been detected from infalling material. This result can be explained if the black hole is "ultramassive" rather than supermassive, with a mass more than 10 billion times that of the sun. Such a black hole should be able to produce powerful jets without consuming large amounts of mass, resulting in very little radiation from material falling inwards.
Another possible explanation is that the black hole has a mass only about a billion times that of the sun but is spinning extremely rapidly. Such a black hole can produce more powerful jets than a slowly spinning black hole when consuming the same amount of matter. In both explanations the black hole is extremely massive.
A more distant cavity is also seen at a different angle with respect to the jets, along a north-south direction. This cavity is likely to have been produced by a jet from a much older outburst from the black hole. This raises the question of why this cavity is no longer aligned with the jets. There are two possible explanations. Either large-scale motion of the gas in the cluster has pushed it to the side or the black hole is precessing, that is, wobbling like a spinning top.
A paper describing this work was published in the November 10th, 2013 issue of The Astrophysical Journal and is available online. The first author is Julie Hlavacek-Larrondo from Stanford University. The Hubble data used in this analysis were from the Cluster Lensing and Supernova survey, led by Marc Postman from Space Telescope Science Institute.
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 in Cambridge, Mass., controls Chandra's science and flight operations.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Stanford/J.Hlavacek-Larrondo et al, Optical: NASA/ESA/STScI/M.Postman & CLASH team
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This beautiful composite image shows N49, the aftermath of a supernova explosion in the Large Magellanic Cloud. A new long observation from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, shown in blue, reveals evidence for a bullet-shaped object being blown out of debris field left over from an exploded star.
In order to detect this bullet, a team of researchers led by Sangwook Park of Penn State University used Chandra to observe N49 for over 30 hours. This bullet can be seen in the bottom right hand corner of the image (see the labeled version of the image) and is rich in silicon, sulphur and neon. The detection of this bullet shows that the explosion that destroyed the star was highly asymmetric.
The bullet is traveling at a high speed of about 5 million miles an hour away from a bright point source in the upper left part of N49. This bright source may be a so-called soft gamma ray repeater (SGR), a source that emits bursts of gamma rays and X-rays. A leading explanation for these objects is that they are neutron stars with extremely powerful magnetic fields. Since neutron stars are often created in supernova explosions, an association between SGRs and supernova remnants is not unexpected. This case is strengthened by the apparent alignment between the bullet's path and the bright X-ray source. However, the new Chandra data also shows that the bright source is more obscured by gas than expected if it really lies inside the supernova remnant. In other words, it is possible that the bright X-ray source actually lies beyond the remnant and is projected along the line of sight. Another possible bullet is located on the opposite side of the remnant, but it is harder to see in the image because it overlaps with the bright emission - described below - from the shock- cloud interaction.
Optical data from the Hubble Space Telescope (yellow and purple) shows bright filaments where the shock wave generated by the supernova is interacting with the densest regions in nearby clouds of cool, molecular gas.
Using the new Chandra data, the age of N49 -- as it appears in the image -- is thought to be about 5,000 years and the energy of the explosion is estimated to be about twice that of an average supernova. These preliminary results suggest that the original explosion was caused by the collapse of a massive star.
Read entire caption/view more images: chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2010/n49/
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Penn State/S. Park et al. Optical: NASA/STScI/UIUC/Y.H. Chu & R. Williams et al.
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!
This 2010 image from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory of the northern part of the galaxy cluster Abell 1758 show the effects of a collision between two smaller galaxy clusters. Chandra X-ray data reveal hot gas in the cluster. A study of this galaxy cluster and 31 others with Chandra and the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT) in India shows that huge radio halos are generated during collisions between galaxy clusters.
Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO/M.Markevitch
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This 2010 image from the Chandra X-ray Observatory shows the Abell 644 galaxy in the center of a galaxy cluster that lies about 920 million light years from Earth. At the center of this galaxy is a growing supermassive black hole, called an active galactic nucleus (AGN) by astronomers, which is pulling in large quantities of gas.
Credit: NASA/CXC/Northwestern Univ/D.Haggard et al,
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This 2000 Chandra image reveals a point-like source of X-rays embedded in the remains of the supernova remnant IC443. This discovery was made by three high school students using data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory in conjunction with radio data from the National Science Foundation's Very Large Array (VLA). The comet-shaped appearance of the cloud of high-energy particles in the Chandra image indicates that the neutron star is moving through IC 443. Like the wake of a supersonic airplane, the swept-back shape of the nebula around the neutron star allowed the students to measure the speed it is traveling away from its origin. Using this result and the apparent distance that the neutron star has traveled from the center of the supernova remnant, the students calculated that the light from the initial explosion arrived at Earth about 30,000 years ago, thus addressing an outstanding question about IC 443.
The remnant of the IC 443 supernova is a well-studied object. Astronomers have searched this region (roughly 5,000 light years from Earth) for the neutron star created in the explosion that they thought should be there, judging from the size and dynamics of the supernova remnant.
Neutron stars, such as the one found by the NCSSM team, are the compact hot embers of very massive stars that have exhausted their fuel and expelled their own shells. The remaining cores, often no more than 10 miles in diameter, are very dense objects that sometimes spin and release beams of particles along their magnetic poles.
The colors in this image represent the intensities of X-rays Chandra observed. Regions the most X-rays are shown in white, with the fainter regions represented by the blue-green color.
Image credit: NASA/NCSSM/C.Olbert et al.
This 2011 image of NGC 4151 shows a close-up of the central region of the galaxy. The dimensions of the close-up are only 2,000 light years across. Here, the data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory are shown in blue, and we add in radio data from the VLA (purple) and HST data (yellow) showing oxygen emission. The linear structures show clear evidence for an earlier outburst from a supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy.
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
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G327.1-1.1 is the aftermath of a massive star that exploded and left behind a highly magnetic, rapidly spinning neutron star called a pulsar. This pulsar is producing a wind of relativistic particles, seen in X-rays by Chandra and XMM-Newton. These 2010 X-ray observations allow scientists to estimate the energy released during the supernova explosion and the age of the remnant, as well as the amount of material being swept up as the blast wave from the explosion expands.
Credit: NASA/CXC/SAO/T.Temim et al, ESA/XMM-Newton
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A region of glowing gas in the Sagittarius arm of the Milky Way galaxy, NGC 3576 is located about 9,000 light years from Earth. Such nebulas present a tableau of the drama of the evolution of massive stars, from the formation in vast dark clouds, their relatively brief (a few million years) lives, and the eventual destruction in supernova explosions. The diffuse X-ray data detected by Chandra (blue) are likely due to the winds from young, massive stars that are blowing throughout the nebula. Optical data from ESO are shown in orange and yellow.
Read entire captions/view all images: www.chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2013/archives/more.html
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Penn State/L.Townsley et al, Optical: ESO/2.2m telescope
Caption credit: Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
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These official NASA photographs are being made available for publication by news organizations and/or for personal use printing by the subject(s) of the photographs. The photographs may not be used in materials, advertisements, products, or promotions that in any way suggest approval or endorsement by NASA. All Images used must be credited. For information on usage rights please visit: www.nasa.gov/audience/formedia/features/MP_Photo_Guidelin...
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
Two teams of astronomers have used data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and other telescopes to map the distribution of dark matter in a galaxy cluster known as Abell 383, which is located about 2.3 billion light years from Earth. Not only were the researchers able to find where the dark matter lies in the two dimensions across the sky, they were also able to determine how the dark matter is distributed along the line of sight.
Dark matter is invisible material that does not emit or absorb any type of light, but is detectable through its gravitational effects. Several lines of evidence indicate that there is about six times as much dark matter as "normal," or baryonic, matter in the Universe. Understanding the nature of this mysterious matter is one of the outstanding problems in astrophysics.
Galaxy clusters are the largest gravitationally-bound structures in the universe, and play an important role in research on dark matter and cosmology, the study of the structure and evolution of the universe. The use of clusters as dark matter and cosmological probes hinges on scientists' ability to use objects such as Abell 383 to accurately determine the three-dimensional structures and masses of clusters.
The recent work on Abell 383 provides one of the most detailed 3-D pictures yet taken of dark matter in a galaxy cluster. Both teams have found that the dark matter is stretched out like a gigantic football, rather than being spherical like a basketball, and that the point of the football is aligned close to the line of sight.
The X-ray data (purple) from Chandra in the composite image show the hot gas, which is by far the dominant type of normal matter in the cluster. Galaxies are shown with the optical data from the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), the Very Large Telescope, and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, colored in blue and white.
Both teams combined the X-ray observations of the "normal matter" in the cluster with gravitational lensing information determined from optical data. Gravitational lensing -- an effect predicted by Albert Einstein -- causes the material in the galaxy cluster, both normal and dark matter, to bend and distort the optical light from background galaxies. The distortion is severe in some parts of the image, producing an arc-like appearance for some of the galaxies. In other parts of the image the distortion is subtle and statistical analysis is used to study the distortion effects and probe the dark matter.
A considerable amount of effort has gone into studying the center of galaxy clusters, where the dark matter has the highest concentration and important clues about its behavior might be revealed. Both of the Abell 383 studies reported here continue that effort.
The team of Andrea Morandi from Tel Aviv University in Israel and Marceau Limousin from Université de Provence in France and University of Copenhagen in Denmark concluded that the increased concentration of the dark matter toward the center of the cluster is in agreement with most theoretical simulations. Their lensing data came from HST images.
Read entire caption/view more images: www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/chandra/multimedia/abell383.html
Credit: NASA, ESA, CFHT, CXO, M.J. Jee (University of California, Davis), and A. Mahdavi (San Francisco State University)
Read entire caption/view more images: chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2012/a383/
Caption credit: Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
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These official NASA photographs are being made available for publication by news organizations and/or for personal use printing by the subject(s) of the photographs. The photographs may not be used in materials, advertisements, products, or promotions that in any way suggest approval or endorsement by NASA. All Images used must be credited. For information on usage rights please visit: www.nasa.gov/audience/formedia/features/MP_Photo_Guidelin...
The center of the spiral galaxy NGC 1365 contains a supermassive black hole being fed by a steady stream of material. Some of the hot gas revealed in the X-ray image from Chandra (purple) will eventually be pulled into the black hole. The Chandra image has been combined with infrared data from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (red, green, and blue).
Credit: NASA/CXC/UMass/Q.D. Wang; Image processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/N. Wolk
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This composite image shows the superbubble DEM L50 (a.k.a. N186) located in the Large Magellanic Cloud about 160,000 light years from Earth. Superbubbles are found in regions where massive stars have formed in the last few million years. The massive stars produce intense radiation, expel matter at high speeds, and race through their evolution to explode as supernovas. The winds and supernova shock waves carve out huge cavities called superbubbles in the surrounding gas.
X-rays from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory are shown in pink and optical data from the Magellanic Cloud Emission Line Survey (MCELS) are colored in red, green and blue. The MCELS data were obtained with the University of Michigan's 0.9-meter Curtis Schmidt telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO). The shape of DEM L50 is approximately an ellipse, with a supernova remnant named SNR N186 D located on its northern edge.
Like another superbubble in the LMC, N44, DEM L50 gives off about 20 times more X-rays than expected from standard models for the evolution of superbubbles. A Chandra study published in 2011 showed that there are two extra sources of the bright X-ray emission: supernova shock waves striking the walls of the cavities, and hot material evaporating from the cavity walls.
The Chandra study of DEM L50 was published in the Astrophysical Journal in 2011 and was led by Anne Jaskot from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. The Chandra study of DEM L50 was led by Anne Jaskot from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. The co-authors were Dave Strickland from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD, Sally Oey from University of Michigan, You-Hua Chu from University of Illinois and Guillermo Garcia-Segura from Instituto de Astronomia-UNAM in Ensenada, Mexico.
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's science and flight operations from Cambridge, Mass.
Read entire caption/view more images: chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2013/deml50/
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Univ of Michigan/A.E.Jaskot, Optical: NOAO/CTIO/MCELS
Caption credit: Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
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These official NASA photographs are being made available for publication by news organizations and/or for personal use printing by the subject(s) of the photographs. The photographs may not be used in materials, advertisements, products, or promotions that in any way suggest approval or endorsement by NASA. All Images used must be credited. For information on usage rights please visit: www.nasa.gov/audience/formedia/features/MP_Photo_Guidelin...
Chandra is celebrating 10 years of operation. Here's a psychedelic wowser from April 10, 2000.
Color composite of the supernova remnant E0102-72: X-ray (blue), optical (green), and radio (red). E0102-72 is the remnant of a star that exploded in a nearby galaxy known as the Small Magellanic Cloud. The galaxy is approximately 190,000 light years from Earth, so we see the remnant as it was about 190,000 years ago, around a thousand years after the explosion occurred.
The star exploded outward at speeds in excess of 20 million kilometers per hr (12 million mph) and collided with surrounding gas. This collision produced two shock waves, or cosmic sonic booms one traveling outward, and the other rebounding back into the material ejected by the explosion.
The radio image was made using the Australia Telescope Compact Array. The radio waves are due to extremely high-energy electrons spiraling around magnetic field lines in the gas and trace the outward moving shock wave.
The Chandra X-ray image, shown in blue, shows gas that has been heated to millions of degrees Celsius by the rebounding, or reverse shock wave. The X-ray data show that this gas is rich in oxygen and neon. These elements were created by nuclear reactions inside the star and hurled into space by the supernova.
The Hubble Space Telescope optical image shows dense clumps of oxygen gas that have "cooled" to about 30,000 degree Celsius.
Images such as these, taken with different types of telescopes, give astronomers a much more complete picture of supernova explosions. They can map how the elements necessary for life are dispersed, and measure the energy of the matter as it expands into the galaxy.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO, Optical: NASA/HST, Radio: CSIRO/ATNF/ATCA
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www.chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2000/0015multi/
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Just over a thousand years ago, the stellar explosion known as supernova SN 1006 was observed. It was brighter than Venus, and visible during the day for weeks. The brightest supernova ever recorded on Earth, this spectacular light show was documented in China, Japan, Europe, and the Arab world.
Ancient observers were treated to this celestial fireworks display without understanding its cause or implications. Astronomers now understand that SN 1006 was caused by a white dwarf star that captured mass from a companion star until the white dwarf became unstable and exploded. Recent observations of the remnant of SN 1006 reveal the liberation of elements such as iron that were previously locked up inside the star. Because no material falls back into a neutron star or black hole after this type of supernova explosion, the liberation of this star's contents is complete.
Image credit:
X-ray: NASA/CXC/Rutgers/G.Cassam-Chenaï, J.Hughes et al.; Radio: NRAO/AUI/NSF/GBT/VLA/Dyer, Maddalena & Cornwell; Optical: Middlebury College/F.Winkler, NOAO/AURA/NSF/CTIO Schmidt & DSS
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chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2008/sn1006c/
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A long observation with Chandra of the supernova remnant MSH 11-62 reveals an irregular shell of hot gas, shown in red, surrounding an extended nebula of high energy X-rays, shown in blue. Even though scientists have yet to detect any pulsations from the central object within MSH 11-62, the structure around it has many of the same characteristics as other pulsar wind nebulas. The reverse shock and other, secondary shocks within MSH 11-62 appear to have begun to crush the pulsar wind nebula, possibly contributing to its elongated shape. (Note: the orientation of this image has been rotated by 24 degrees so that north is pointed to the upper left.)
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Image credit: NASA/CXC/SAO/P. Slane et al.
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These official NASA photographs are being made available for publication by news organizations and/or for personal use printing by the subject(s) of the photographs. The photographs may not be used in materials, advertisements, products, or promotions that in any way suggest approval or endorsement by NASA. All Images used must be credited. For information on usage rights please visit: www.nasa.gov/audience/formedia/features/MP_Photo_Guidelin...
In commemoration of the 15th anniversary of NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, four newly processed images of supernova remnants dramatically illustrate Chandra’s unique ability to explore high-energy processes in the cosmos.
At a distance of about 20,000 light years, G292.0+1.8 is one of only three supernova remnants in the Milky Way known to contain large amounts of oxygen. These oxygen-rich supernovas are of great interest to astronomers because they are one of the primary sources of the heavy elements (that is, everything other than hydrogen and helium) necessary to form planets and people. The X-ray image from Chandra shows a rapidly expanding, intricately structured, debris field that contains, along with oxygen (yellow and orange), other elements such as magnesium (green) and silicon and sulfur (blue) that were forged in the star before it exploded.
NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the Chandra program for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, controls Chandra's science and flight operations.
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www.nasa.gov/chandra/multimedia/chandra-15th-anniversary-...
Original caption/more images:
www.nasa.gov/chandra/multimedia/chandra-15th-anniversary-...
Image credit: NASA/CXC/SAO
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Chandra album on Fickr:
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These official NASA photographs are being made available for publication by news organizations and/or for personal use printing by the subject(s) of the photographs. The photographs may not be used in materials, advertisements, products, or promotions that in any way suggest approval or endorsement by NASA. All Images used must be credited. For information on usage rights please visit: www.nasa.gov/audience/formedia/features/MP_Photo_Guidelin...
Editor's note: this is an unannotated image from this fully overlaid image: www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/chandra/multimedia/mini_black_...
Main caption: One of the lowest mass supermassive black holes ever observed in the middle of a galaxy has been identified, thanks to NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and several other observatories. The host galaxy is of a type not expected to harbor supermassive black holes, suggesting that this black hole, while related to its supermassive cousins, may have a different origin.
The black hole is located in the middle of the spiral galaxy NGC 4178, shown in this image from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. The inset shows an X-ray source at the position of the black hole, in the center of a Chandra image. An analysis of the Chandra data, along with infrared data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and radio data from the NSF's Very Large Array suggests that the black hole is near the extreme low-mass end of the supermassive black hole range.
These results were published in the July 1, 2012 issue of The Astrophysical Journal by Nathan Secrest, from George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, and collaborators.
The properties of the X-ray source, including its brightness and spectrum - the amount of X-rays at different wavelengths - and its brightness at infrared wavelengths, suggest that a black hole in the center of NGC 4178 is rapidly pulling in material from its surroundings. The same data also suggest that light generated by this infalling material is heavily absorbed by gas and dust surrounding the black hole.
A known relationship between the mass of a black hole and the amount of X-rays and radio waves it generates was used to estimate the mass of the black hole. This method gives a black hole mass estimate of less than about 200,000 times that of the sun. This agrees with mass estimates from several other methods employed by the authors, and is lower than the typical values for supermassive black holes of millions to billions of times the mass of the sun.
NGC 4178 is a spiral galaxy located about 55 million light years from Earth. It does not contain a bright central concentration, or bulge, of stars in its center. Besides NGC 4178, four other galaxies without bulges are currently thought to contain supermassive black holes. Of these four black holes, two have masses that may be close to that of the black hole in NGC 4178. XMM-Newton observations of an X-ray source discovered by Chandra in the center of the galaxy NGC 4561 indicate that the mass of this black hole is greater than 20,000 times the mass of the sun, but the mass could be substantially higher if the black hole is pulling in material slowly, causing it to generate less X-ray emission. A paper describing these results was published in the October 1st, 2012 issue of The Astrophysical Journal by Araya Salvo and collaborators.
The mass of the black hole in the galaxy NGC 4395 is estimated to be about 360,000 times the mass of the sun, as published by Peterson and collaborators in the October 20, 2005 issue of the Astrophysical Journal.
Read entire caption/view more images: chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2012/ngc4178/
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/George Mason Univ/N.Secrest et al; Optical: SDSS
Caption credit: Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
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These official NASA photographs are being made available for publication by news organizations and/or for personal use printing by the subject(s) of the photographs. The photographs may not be used in materials, advertisements, products, or promotions that in any way suggest approval or endorsement by NASA. All Images used must be credited. For information on usage rights please visit: www.nasa.gov/audience/formedia/features/MP_Photo_Guidelin...
The star-forming region, 30 Doradus, is one of the largest located close to the Milky Way and 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. Multimillion-degree gas detected in X-rays by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory comes from shock fronts formed by these stellar winds and by supernova explosions.
Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/PSU/L.Townsley et al.; Infrared: NASA/JPL/PSU/L.Townsley et al.
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The Chandra image of G327.1-1.1 shows an outward-moving shock wave (faint red color) and a bright pulsar wind nebula (blue). The pulsar wind nebula appears to have been distorted by the combined action of a reverse shock wave, which may have flattened it, and by the motion of the pulsar, which created a comet, or lobster-like tail. An asymmetric supernova explosion may have given a recoil kick to the pulsar, causing it to move rapidly and drag the pulsar wind nebula along with it. Two structures resembling lobster claws protrude from near the head of the pulsar wind nebula. The origin of these features, which may be produced by the interaction of the pulsar wind with the reverse shock, is unknown.
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Image credit: NASA/CXC/GSFC/T. Temim et al.
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These official NASA photographs are being made available for publication by news organizations and/or for personal use printing by the subject(s) of the photographs. The photographs may not be used in materials, advertisements, products, or promotions that in any way suggest approval or endorsement by NASA. All Images used must be credited. For information on usage rights please visit: www.nasa.gov/audience/formedia/features/MP_Photo_Guidelin...
Like two Sumo wrestlers squaring off, the closest confirmed pair of supermassive black holes have been observed in tight proximity. These are located approximately 300 light-years apart and were detected using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and the Chandra X-ray Observatory. These black holes, buried deep within a pair of colliding galaxies, are fueled by infalling gas and dust, causing them to shine brightly as active galactic nuclei (AGN).
This AGN pair is the closest one detected in the local universe using multiwavelength (visible and X-ray light) observations. While several dozen "dual" black holes have been found before, their separations are typically much greater than what was discovered in the gas-rich galaxy MCG-03-34-64. Astronomers using radio telescopes have observed one pair of binary black holes in even closer proximity than in MCG-03-34-64, but without confirmation in other wavelengths.
This is Hubble Space Telescope visible-light image of the galaxy MCG-03-34-064. Hubble's sharp view reveals three distinct bright spots embedded in a white ellipse at the galaxy's center (expanded in an inset image at upper right). Two of these bright spots are the source of strong X-ray emission, a telltale sign that they are supermassive black holes. The black holes shine brightly because they are converting infalling matter into energy, and blaze across space as active galactic nuclei. Their separation is about 300 light-years. The third spot is a blob of bright gas. The blue streak pointing to the 5 o'clock position may be a jet fired from one of the black holes. The black hole pair is a result of a merger between two galaxies that will eventually collide.
Credit: NASA, ESA, Anna Trindade Falcão (CfA); Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)
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Editor's note: Happy Valentine's Day, Flickr friends! This pretty-in-pink image of Orion is from the 2007 archives.
At a distance of about 1,500 light years, the Orion Nebula is one of the closest star formation regions to Earth. This makes Orion -- a favorite for amateur astronomers and casual sky watchers -- an excellent location to study how stars are born and behave during their stellar childhoods. In this composite image, the central region of Orion is seen as never before through NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Hubble Space Telescope.
The bright point-like sources (blue and orange) in this image are the newly formed stars captured in X-ray light by a long series of Chandra observations. These nearly continuous observations, lasting almost 13 days, allowed astronomers to monitor the activity of Sun-like stars between 1 and 10 million years old. The fledgling stars were seen to flare in their X-ray intensity much more than our Sun does today. This suggests our Sun had many violent and energetic outbursts when it was much younger. The wispy filaments (pink and purple) are clouds of gas and dust as seen by Hubble in optical light. This gas and dust will one day condense into disks of material from which future generations of stars will be born.
Credits: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Penn State/E.Feigelson & K.Getman et al.; Optical: NASA/ESA/STScI/M. Robberto et al.
Read entire caption/view more images: chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2007/orion/
Caption credit: Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
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Astronomers using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and the 6.5-meter Clay Telescope in Chile have identified the smallest supermassive black hole ever detected in the center of a galaxy. This oxymoronic object could provide clues to how larger black holes formed along with their host galaxies 13 billion years or more in the past.
Astronomers estimate this supermassive black hole is about 50,000 times the mass of the sun. This is less than half the mass of the previous smallest black hole at the center of a galaxy.
“It might sound contradictory, but finding such a small, large black hole is very important,” said Vivienne Baldassare of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, first author of a paper on these results published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. “We can use observations of the lightest supermassive black holes to better understand how black holes of different sizes grow.”
The tiny heavyweight black hole is in the center of a dwarf disk galaxy, called RGG 118, located about 340 million light years from Earth, and was originally discovered using the Sloan Digital Sky Survey.
Researchers estimated the mass of the black hole by studying the motion of cool gas near the center of the galaxy using visible light data from the Clay Telescope. They used the Chandra data to figure out the X-ray brightness of hot gas swirling toward the black hole. They found the outward push of radiation pressure of this hot gas is about 1 percent of the black hole’s inward pull of gravity, matching the properties of other supermassive black holes.
Previously, scientists had noted a relationship between the mass of supermassive black holes and the range of velocities of stars in the center of their host galaxy. This relationship also holds for RGG 118 and its black hole.
“We found this little supermassive black hole behaves very much like its bigger, and in some cases much bigger, cousins,” said co-author Amy Reines of the University of Michigan. “This tells us black holes grow in a similar way no matter what their size.”
The black hole in RGG 118 is nearly 100 times less massive than the supermassive black hole found in the center of the Milky Way. It’s also about 200,000 times less massive than the heaviest black holes found in the centers of other galaxies.
Astronomers are trying to understand the formation of billion-solar-mass black holes from less than a billion years after the big bang, but many are undetectable with current technology. The black hole in RGG 118 gives astronomers an opportunity to study a nearby small supermassive black hole.
Astronomers think supermassive black holes may form when a large cloud of gas, with a mass of about 10,000 to 100,000 times that of the sun, collapses into a black hole. Many of these black hole seeds then merge to form much larger supermassive black holes. Alternately, a supermassive black hole seed could come from a giant star, about 100 times the sun’s mass, that ultimately forms into a black hole after it runs out of fuel and collapses.
“We have two main ideas for how these supermassive black holes are born,” said Elena Gallo of the University of Michigan. “This black hole in RGG 118 is serving as a proxy for those in the very early universe and ultimately may help us decide which of the two is right.”
Researchers will continue to look for other supermassive black holes that are comparable in size or even smaller than the one in RGG 118 to help decide which of the models is more accurate and refine their understanding of how these objects grow.
A preprint of these results is available online. The other co-author of the paper is Jenny Greene, from Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the Chandra program for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, manages Chandra's science and flight operations.
An interactive image, podcast, and a video about the findings are available at:
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This 2011 image shows X-rays from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory of the galaxy NGC 3115. Using the Chandra data, the flow of hot gas toward the supermassive black hole in the center of this galaxy has been imaged. This is the first time that clear evidence for such a flow has been observed in any black hole. The new Chandra image also supports the previous optical observations that suggest that NGC 3115's black hole has a mass of about two billion times that of the Sun. This would make NGC 3115 the host of the nearest billion-solar- mass black hole to Earth.
Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Univ. of Alabama/K.Wong et al, Optical: ESO/VLT
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A new collection of images features data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. These objects have been observed in invisible light — including X-rays, infrared, and radio — by some of the most powerful telescopes. Each layer represents data that has been assigned colors that the human eye can perceive, allowing us to explore these cosmic entities.
In this image, the galaxy ESO 137-001 moves through space at 1.5 million miles per hour, it leaves not one — but two — tails behind it. These tails trailing after ESO 137-001 are made of superheated gas that Chandra detects in X-rays (blue). ESO’s Very Large Telescope shows light from hydrogen atoms (red), which have been added to the image along with optical and infrared data from Hubble (orange and cyan).
Credit: NASA/CXC/UMass/Q.D. Wang; Image processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/N. Wolk
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M101 is a spiral galaxy like our Milky Way, but about 70% bigger. It is located about 21 million light years from Earth. X-rays from Chandra reveal the hottest and most energetic areas due to exploded stars, superheated gas, and material falling toward black holes. Infrared data from Spitzer shows dusty lanes in the galaxy where stars are forming, while optical data traces the light from stars.
This image is part of a "quartet of galaxies" collaboration of professional and amateur astronomers that combines optical data from amateur telescopes with data from the archives of NASA missions. 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 in Cambridge, Mass., controls Chandra's science and flight operations.
Original caption/more images: chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2014/proam/more.html
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: Detlef Hartmann; Infrared: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Read more about Chandra:
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!
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These official NASA photographs are being made available for publication by news organizations and/or for personal use printing by the subject(s) of the photographs. The photographs may not be used in materials, advertisements, products, or promotions that in any way suggest approval or endorsement by NASA. All Images used must be credited. For information on usage rights please visit: www.nasa.gov/audience/formedia/features/MP_Photo_Guidelin...
The supernova remnant 3C 58 contains a spinning neutron star, known as PSR J0205+6449, at its center. Astronomers studied this neutron star and others like it to probe the nature of matter inside these very dense objects. A new study, made using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and ESA’s XMM-Newton, reveals that the interiors of neutron stars may contain a type of ultra-dense matter not found anywhere else in the Universe.
In this image of 3C 58, low-energy X-rays are colored red, medium-energy X-rays are green, and the high-energy band of X-rays is shown in blue. The X-ray data have been combined with an optical image in yellow from the Digitized Sky Survey. The Chandra data show that the rapidly rotating neutron star (also known as a “pulsar”) at the center is surrounded by a torus of X-ray emission and a jet that extends for several light-years. The optical data shows stars in the field.
Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/ICE-CSIC/A. Marino et al.; Optical: SDSS; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/J. Major
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The destructive results of a powerful supernova explosion reveal themselves in a delicate tapestry of X-ray light, as seen in this image from NASA’s Chandra X-Ray Observatory and the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton.
The image shows the remains of a supernova that would have been witnessed on Earth about 3,700 years ago. The remnant is called Puppis A, and is around 7,000 light years away and about 10 light years across. This image provides the most complete and detailed X-ray view of Puppis A ever obtained, made by combining a mosaic of different Chandra and XMM-Newton observations. Low-energy X-rays are shown in red, medium-energy X-rays are in green and high energy X-rays are colored blue.
These observations act as a probe of the gas surrounding Puppis A, known as the interstellar medium. The complex appearance of the remnant shows that Puppis A is expanding into an interstellar medium that probably has a knotty structure.
Supernova explosions forge the heavy elements that can provide the raw material from which future generations of stars and planets will form. Studying how supernova remnants expand into the galaxy and interact with other material provides critical clues into our own origins.
A paper describing these results was published in the July 2013 issue of Astronomy and Astrophysics and is available online. The first author is Gloria Dubner from the Instituto de Astronomía y Física del Espacio in Buenos Aires in Argentina.
Read more:
www.nasa.gov/chandra/multimedia/puppisA-2014.html
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
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Chandra album on Flickr:
www.flickr.com/photos/nasamarshall/sets/72157606205297786/
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These official NASA photographs are being made available for publication by news organizations and/or for personal use printing by the subject(s) of the photographs. The photographs may not be used in materials, advertisements, products, or promotions that in any way suggest approval or endorsement by NASA. All Images used must be credited. For information on usage rights please visit: www.nasa.gov/audience/formedia/features/MP_Photo_Guidelin...
The giant black hole at the center of the Milky Way may be producing mysterious particles called neutrinos. If confirmed, this would be the first time that scientists have traced neutrinos back to a black hole.
The evidence for this came from three NASA satellites that observe in X-ray light: the Chandra X-ray Observatory, the Swift gamma-ray mission, and the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR).
Read more about Chandra:
www.nasa.gov/centers/marshall/news
Read more about Chandra:
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!
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These official NASA photographs are being made available for publication by news organizations and/or for personal use printing by the subject(s) of the photographs. The photographs may not be used in materials, advertisements, products, or promotions that in any way suggest approval or endorsement by NASA. All Images used must be credited. For information on usage rights please visit: www.nasa.gov/audience/formedia/features/MP_Photo_Guidelin...
Hello Flickr friends! Feb. 20 is a quirky holiday called "Love Your Pet Day." To celebrate, we looked up the top seven pets and searched for space images for each animal. Now we're up to #3: the lofty and soaring Bird. In their avian honor, here's a beautiful image of the Eagle Nebula.
There were actually a lot of great bird-themed images. You can also check out the Phoenix Cluster (chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2012/phoenix/) and the Columba (Latin for Dove) constellation (chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2010/a3376/ ).
Caption: A look at the famous "Pillars of Creation" with NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has allowed astronomers to peer inside the dark columns of gas and dust. This penetrating view of the central region of the Eagle Nebula reveals how much star formation is happening inside these iconic structures.
The Chandra data shows bright X-ray sources in this field, most of which are young stars. In this image, red, green, and blue represent low, medium, and high energy X-rays. The Chandra data have been overlaid on the Hubble Space Telescope image to show the context of these X-ray data.
Very few X-ray sources are found in the pillars themselves. This suggests that the Eagle Nebula may be past its star-forming prime, since young stars are usually bright X-ray sources. However, there are two X-ray objects found near the tips of the pillars. One is a young star about 4 or 5 times as massive as the Sun, visible as the blue source near the tip of the pillar on the left. The other is a lower mass star near the top of the other pillar that is so faint it is not visible in the composite image.
The Chandra observations did not detect X-rays from any of the so-called evaporating gaseous globules, or EGGs. The EGGs are dense, compact pockets of interstellar gas where stars are believed to be forming. The lack of X-rays from these objects may mean that most of the EGGs do not contain enshrouded stars. However, infrared observations have shown that 11 of the 73 EGGs contain infant stellar objects and 4 of these are massive enough to form a star. The stars embedded in these 4 EGGs might be so young that they have not generated X-rays yet and one of them (E42) - estimated to have about the mass of the Sun - could represent one of the earliest stages of evolution of our nearest star. The Sun was likely born in a region like the Pillars of Creation.
The pillars and the few stars forming inside them are the last vestiges of star formation in the Eagle Nebula, also known as M16, which peaked several million years earlier. This contrasts strongly with the active star forming regions in other clusters such as NGC 2024, where Chandra sees a dense cluster of embedded young stars.
The results were published in the January 1st issue of The Astrophysical Journal and the research team, led by Jeffrey Linsky of the University of Colorado, includes Marc Gagne and Anna Mytyk (West Chester University), Mark McCaughrean (University of Exeter) and Morten Andersen (University of Arizona).
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/U.Colorado/Linsky et al.; Optical: NASA/ESA/STScI/ASU/J.Hester & P.Scowen.
Original image: chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2007/m16/
Read more about Chandra:
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!
_____________________________________________
These official NASA photographs are being made available for publication by news organizations and/or for personal use printing by the subject(s) of the photographs. The photographs may not be used in materials, advertisements, products, or promotions that in any way suggest approval or endorsement by NASA. All Images used must be credited. For information on usage rights please visit: www.nasa.gov/audience/formedia/features/MP_Photo_Guidelin...
Long before the term "citizen science" was coined, the field of astronomy has benefited from countless men and women who
study the sky in their spare time. These amateur astronomers devote hours exploring the cosmos through a variety of
telescopes that they acquire, maintain, and improve on their own. Some of these amateur astronomers specialize in capturing
what is seen through their telescopes in images and are astrophotographers.
What happens when the work of amateur astronomers and astrophotographers is combined with the data from some of the world's
most sophisticated space telescopes? Collaborations between professional and amateur astronomers reveal the possibilities and
are intended to raise interest and awareness among the community of the wealth of data publicly available in NASA's various
mission archives. This effort is particularly appropriate for this month because April marks Global Astronomy Month, the
world's largest global celebration of astronomy.
The images in this quartet of galaxies represent a sample of composites created with X-ray data from NASA's Chandra X-ray
Observatory, infrared data from the Spitzer Space Telescope, and optical data collected by an amateur astronomer. In these
images, the X-rays from Chandra are shown in pink, infrared emission from Spitzer is red, and the optical data are in red,
green, and blue. The two astrophotographers who donated their images for these four images -- Detlef Hartmann and Rolf Olsen
-- used their personal telescopes of 17.5 inches and 10 inches in diameter respectively. More details on how these images
were made can be found in this blog post.
Starting in the upper left and moving clockwise, the galaxies are M101 (the "Pinwheel Galaxy"), M81, Centaurus A, and M51
(the "Whirlpool Galaxy"). M101 is a spiral galaxy like our Milky Way, but about 70% bigger. It is located about 21 million
light years from Earth. M81 is a spiral galaxy about 12 million light years away that is both relatively large in the sky and
bright, making it a frequent target for both amateur and professional astronomers. Centaurus A is the fifth brightest galaxy
in the sky -- making it an ideal target for amateur astronomers -- and is famous for the dust lane across its middle and a
giant jet blasting away from the supermassive black hole at its center. Finally, M51 is another spiral galaxy, about 30
million light years away, that is in the process of merging with a smaller galaxy seen to its upper left.
For many amateur astronomers and astrophotographers, a main goal of their efforts is to observe and share the wonders of the
Universe. However, the long exposures of these objects may help to reveal phenomena that may otherwise be missed in the
relatively short snapshots taken by major telescopes, which are tightly scheduled and often oversubscribed by professional
astronomers. Therefore, projects like this Astro Pro-Am collaboration might prove useful not only for producing spectacular
images, but also contributing to the knowledge of what is happening in each of these cosmic vistas.
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 in Cambridge, Mass., controls Chandra's science and flight
operations.
Original caption/more images: www.nasa.gov/chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2014/proam/
Image credit: Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: Detlef Hartmann; Infrared: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Read more about Chandra:
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!
_____________________________________________
These official NASA photographs are being made available for publication by news organizations and/or for personal use
printing by the subject(s) of the photographs. The photographs may not be used in materials, advertisements, products, or
promotions that in any way suggest approval or endorsement by NASA. All Images used must be credited. For information on
usage rights please visit: www.nasa.gov/audience/formedia/features/MP_Photo_Guidelin...
Get ready to be sucked in! It's #BlackHoleWeek! ⚫
Throughout the week, science communicators from across the globe will be sharing news, videos, and social media posts about black holes. Stay tuned here for more black hole week content.
This image shows the dwarf starburst galaxy Henize 2-10, located about 30 million light years from Earth. Henize 2-10 has provided astronomers with a detailed new look at how galaxy and black hole formation may have occured in the early Universe. The image shows X-ray data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. A compact X-ray source at the center of the galaxy coincides with a radio source, giving evidence for an actively growing supermassive black hole with a mass of about one million times that of the Sun.
Credit: NASA/CXC/Virginia/A.Reines et al.
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Editor's Note: This is an archive image from 2004.
Chandra's image of the galaxy cluster Abell 2125 reveals a complex of several massive multimillion-degree-Celsius gas clouds in the process of merging. Ten of the point-like sources are associated with galaxies in the cluster, and the rest are probably distant background galaxies. The small bright feature in the extreme lower right-hand corner is probably a background galaxy cluster not associated with Abell 2125.
The bright gas cloud on the upper left is the core of the cluster and envelops hundreds of galaxies. It consists of several elongated clouds that are merging. Chandra, Hubble Space Telescope, and Very Large Array radio telescope data show that several galaxies in the Abell 2125 core cluster are being stripped of their gas as they fall through surrounding high-pressure hot gas. (See C153 image). This stripping process has enriched the core cluster's gas in heavy elements such as iron.
In contrast, the bright large cloud on the lower right envelops hundreds of galaxies and has an extraordinarily low concentration of iron atoms. It is thought that this cloud, which is several million light years from the core cluster, has not yet been enriched by the stripping of iron-rich gas from its member galaxies. Over time, as this cloud merges into the core and the hot gas pressure increases, iron atoms should be swept from the galaxies.
Building a massive galaxy cluster is a step-by-step enterprise that takes billions of years and affects the growth and evolution of the member galaxies. The observations of Abell 2125 provide a rare glimpse into the early steps in this process.
Credits: NASA/CXC/UMass/Q.D.Wang et al.
Read entire caption/view more images: chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2004/a2125/
Caption credit: Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Read more about Chandra:
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!
A group of dead stars known as 'spider pulsars' are obliterating companion stars within their reach. Data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory of the globular cluster Omega Centauri is helping astronomers understand how these spider pulsars prey on their stellar companions.
A pulsar is the spinning dense core that remains after a massive star collapses into itself to form a neutron star. Rapidly rotating neutron stars can produce beams of radiation. Like a rotating lighthouse beam, the radiation can be observed as a powerful, pulsing source of radiation, or pulsar. Some pulsars spin around dozens to hundreds of times per second, and these are known as millisecond pulsars.
Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: NASA/ESA/STScI/AURA; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/N. Wolk
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