View allAll Photos Tagged chandraxrayobservatory
NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has provided the first clear view of the faint boundary of the Crab Nebula's X-ray-emitting pulsar wind nebula. Powered by a central white pulsar, the nebula contains rapid rotation, a strong magnetic field that generates jets of matter and anti-matter, and an intense outward wind. This combination creates glowing filaments or "fingers and loops" of brightness that make the Crab Nebula so striking.
Image credit:
NASA/CXC/SAO/F.Seward.
Learn more/larger image:
www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/chandra/multimedia/photos08-16...
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!
Chandra is celebrating 10 years of operation. This 2006 pastel space painting shows a multi-million degree nebula about 3,000 light years from Earth.
Composite Chandra and Hubble Space Telescope image shows X-rays from NGC 7027, a young planetary nebula that is about 3,000 light years from Earth. A bubble of multimillion degree gas with a length about a hundred times that of our solar system is shown in the image. The image is brighter to the upper right - the side of the nebula nearest the Earth - where there is less obscuring material to block the X-ray emission.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/RIT/J.Kastner et al.; Optical/IR: BD +30 & Hen 3: NASA/STScI/Univ. MD/J.P.Harrington; NGC 7027: NASA/STScI/Caltech/J.Westphal & W.Latter; Mz 3: NASA/STScI/Univ. Washington/B.Balick
Read more about this image: www.chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2006/pne/more.html
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A dramatic new vista of the center of the Milky Way galaxy from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory exposes new levels of the complexity and intrigue in the Galactic center. The mosaic of 88 Chandra pointings represents a freeze-frame of the spectacle of stellar evolution, from bright young stars to black holes, in a crowded, hostile environment dominated by a central, supermassive black hole.
Permeating the region is a diffuse haze of X-ray light from gas that has been heated to millions of degrees by winds from massive young stars -- which appear to form more frequently here than elsewhere in the Galaxy -- explosions of dying stars, and outflows powered by the supermassive black hole -- known as Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*). Data from Chandra and other X-ray telescopes suggest that giant X-ray flares from this black hole occurred about 50 and about 300 years earlier.
The area around Sgr A* also contains several mysterious X-ray filaments. Some of these likely represent huge magnetic structures interacting with streams of very energetic electrons produced by rapidly spinning neutron stars or perhaps by a gigantic analog of a solar flare.
Scattered throughout the region are thousands of point-like X-ray sources. These are produced by normal stars feeding material onto the compact, dense remains of stars that have reached the end of their evolutionary trail – white dwarfs, neutron stars and black holes.
Because X-rays penetrate the gas and dust that blocks optical light coming from the center of the galaxy, Chandra is a powerful tool for studying the Galactic Center. This image combines low energy X-rays (colored red), intermediate energy X-rays (green) and high energy X- rays (blue).
The image is being released at the beginning of the "Chandra's First Decade of Discovery" symposium being held in Boston, Mass. This four-day conference will celebrate the great science Chandra has uncovered in its first ten years of operations. To help commemorate this event, several of the astronauts who were onboard the Space Shuttle Columbia -- including Commander Eileen Collins -- that launched Chandra on July 23, 1999, will be in attendance.
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/2009/gcenter/
Image credit: NASA/CXC/UMass/D. Wang et al.
Caption credit: Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
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Description: These galaxy clusters are part of a large study using Chandra and Hubble that sets new limits on how dark matter - the mysterious substance that makes up most of the matter in the Universe - interacts with itself. The hot gas that envelopes the clusters glows brightly in X-rays detected by Chandra (pink). When combined with Hubble's visible light data, astronomers can map where the stars and hot gas are after the collision, as well as the inferred distribution of dark matter (blue) through the effect of gravitational lensing.
Creator: Chandra X-ray Observatory Center
Record URL: chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2015/dark/
DescriptionA supernova in the galaxy M82 about 11.4 million light years from Earth.
New Chandra data gives insight into the explosion that produced SN 2014J, one of the closest supernovas discovered in decades. SN 2014J is a so-called Type Ia supernova, an important class that astronomers use to measure the expansion of the Universe. This image shows M82 in the low, medium, and high-energy X-rays that Chandra can detect in red, green, and blue respectively.
Creator: Chandra X-ray Observatory Center
Record URL: chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2014/m82/
Description: Chandra's image of SNR 0540-69.3 reveals two aspects of the enormous power released when a massive star explodes. An implosion crushed material into an extremely dense (10 miles in diameter) neutron star, triggering an explosion that sent a shock wave rumbling through space at speeds in excess of 5 million miles per hour. The central intense white blaze of high-energy particles about 3 light years across was created by a rapidly rotating neutron star, or pulsar. Surrounding the white blaze is a shell of hot gas 40 light years in diameter that marks the location of the supernova shock wave. The colors red, green and blue in the image correspond to low, medium and high-energy X-rays, respectively.
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: 2004
Persistent URL: chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2004/snr0540/
Repository: Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory
Gift line: NASA/CXC/SAO
Accession number: snr0540_xray
This is a composite image of the most distant galaxy cluster yet detected. This image contains X-rays from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, optical data from the Very Large Telescope (VLT) and optical and infrared data from the Digitized Sky Survey. This record-breaking object, known as JKCS041, is observed as it was when the Universe was just one quarter of its current age. X-rays from Chandra are displayed here as the diffuse blue region, while the individual galaxies in the cluster are seen in white in the VLT’s optical data, embedded in the X-ray emission.
JKCS041 was originally detected in 2006 with infrared observations from the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope (UKIRT). The distance to the cluster was then determined from optical and infrared observations from UKIRT, the Canada-France-Hawaii telescope in Hawaii and NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. However, scientists were not sure if it was a true galaxy cluster, rather than one that has been caught in the act of forming. The shape and extent of the X-ray emission in the Chandra data, however, provided the definitive evidence that showed that JKCS041 was, indeed, a galaxy cluster. The Chandra data also allowed scientists to rule out other possible explanations for the data, including a group of galaxies, or a filament of galaxies seen along the line of sight.
Galaxy clusters are the largest gravitationally-bound objects in the Universe. Scientists have calculated when they should start assembling in the early Universe, and JKCS041, at a distance of some 10.2 billion light years, is on the early edge of that epoch. Follow-on observations of JKCS041 will provide scientists with an opportunity to find important information about how the Universe evolved at this crucial stage.
Read entire caption/view more images: chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2009/jkcs041/
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/INAF/S.Andreon et al. Optical: DSS; ESO/VLT
Caption credit: Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
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This composite image of the nearby starburst galaxy M82 shows Chandra X-ray Observatory data in blue, optical data from the Hubble Space Telescope in green and orange, and infrared data from the Spitzer Space Telescope in red. The pullout is a Chandra image that shows the central region of the galaxy and contains two bright X-ray sources -- identified in a labeled version -- of special interest.
New studies with Chandra and ESA's XMM-Newton show that these two sources may be intermediate-mass black holes, with masses in between those of the stellar-mass and supermassive variety. These "survivor" black holes avoided falling into the center of the galaxy and could be examples of the seeds required for the growth of supermassive black holes in galaxies, including the one in the Milky Way.
This is the first case where good evidence for more than one mid-sized black hole exists in a single galaxy. The evidence comes from how their X-ray emission varies over time and analysis of their X-ray brightness and spectra, i.e., the distribution of X-rays with energy.
One of the black holes is located at a projected distance of 290 light years from the center of M82 (labeled with an "x") and its mass is estimated to be between 12,000 and 43,000 times the mass of the Sun. At this close distance, if the black hole was born at the same time as the galaxy and its mass was more than about 30,000 solar masses, it likely would have been pulled into the center of the galaxy. That is, it may have just escaped falling into the supermassive black hole that is presumably located in the center of M82. The second black hole is located 600 light years in projection away from the center of M82. The best model for this M82 black hole has a mass between 200 and 800 times that of the Sun, and tilted at an angle between 60 and 80 degrees, meaning that the disk is viewed almost side-on. However, because of relativistic effects for a rapidly spinning black hole with this mass, a disk viewed at a high inclination is almost as bright as one viewed at a low inclination (i.e., face-on).
These results are interesting because they may help address the mystery of how supermassive black holes in the centers of galaxies form. M82 is located about 12 million light years from Earth and is the nearest place to us where the conditions are similar to those in the early Universe, with lots of stars forming.
Multiple observations of M82 have been made with Chandra beginning soon after launch. The Chandra data shown here were not used in the new research because the X-ray sources are so bright that some distortion is introduced into the X-ray spectra. To combat this, the pointing of Chandra is changed so that images of the sources are deliberately blurred, producing fewer counts in each pixel.
Read entire caption/view more images: chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2010/m82/
Image credit: Inset: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Tsinghua Univ./H. Feng et al.; Full-field: X-ray: NASA/CXC/JHU/D.Strickland; Optical: NASA/ESA/STScI/AURA/The Hubble Heritage Team; IR: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of AZ/C. Engelbracht
Caption credit: Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
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Editor's note: This is a detail from this posting, which contains the full text for these images: www.flickr.com/photos/28634332@N05/5083658621/ Be sure to zoom in and look at all the detail on the flamingoes!
Something a little different than my usual posts. This beautiful series just crossed my desk, and they were too good not to share. It's a fascinating concept that compares astronomy images from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory to various Earth images, drawing parallels of composition and color. The series is called "From the Earth to the Heavens." If y'all enjoy this, let me know, and we'll scan in the other half-dozen or so images. Please view in large to get the best view of images and clear text.
This is part of our "Think Pink" gallery, in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness month: www.flickr.com/photos/28634332@N05/sets/72157625045060125/
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From the back of the postcard, supplementing the text in the graphic:
On the right, the images of the cosmos are from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. Chandra's X-ray images reveal the regions of the Universe where highly energetic and violent phenomena shine. Images on the left are aerial photographs taken of our home planet as part of Yann Arthus-Bertrand's "The Earth from Above" project.
Please credit images as they appear in the graphic.
A huge thank- you to the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, a NASA partner, for creating these gorgeous cards and making them available to us.
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!
Editor's note: Something a little different than my usual posts. This beautiful series just crossed my desk, and they were too good not to share. It's a fascinating concept that compares astronomy images from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory to various Earth images, drawing parallels of composition and color. The series is called "From the Earth to the Heavens." If y'all enjoy this, let me know, and we'll scan in the other half-dozen or so images. Please view in large to get the best view of images and clear text.
From the back of the postcard, supplementing the text in the graphic:
On the right, the images of the cosmos are from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. Chandra's X-ray images reveal the regions of the Universe where highly energetic and violent phenomena shine. Images on the left are aerial photographs taken of our home planet as part of Yann Arthus-Bertrand's "The Earth from Above" project.
Please credit images as they appear in the graphic.
A huge thank- you to the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, a NASA partner, for creating these gorgeous cards and making them available to us.
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!
Supernova in action! This composite image shows the central regions of the nearby Circinus galaxy, located about 12 million light years away. Data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory is shown in blue and data from the Hubble Space Telescope is shown in yellow ("I-band"), red (hydrogen emission), cyan ("V-band") and blue (oxygen emission). The bright, blue source near the lower right hand corner of the image is the supernova SN 1996cr, that has finally been identified over a decade after it exploded.
Image credit:
X-ray (NASA/CXC/Columbia/F.Bauer et al); Optical (NASA/STScI/ UMD/A.Wilson et al.)
Learn more:
www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/chandra/multimedia/photos08-14...
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!
Editor's Note: Ten beautiful years of Chandra! This image from 2004 shows a super-hot, 130 light year region in the center of the Milky Way.
This image was produced by combining a dozen Chandra observations made of a 130 light year region in the center of the Milky Way. The colors represent low (red), medium (green) and high (blue) energy X-rays. Thanks to Chandra's unique resolving power, astronomers have now been able to identify thousands of point-like X-ray sources due to neutron stars, black holes, white dwarfs, foreground stars, and background galaxies. What remains is a diffuse X-ray glow extending from the upper left to the lower right, along the direction of the disk of the Galaxy.
The spectrum of the diffuse glow is consistent with a hot gas cloud that contains two components - 10-million-degree Celsius gas and 100-million-degree gas. The diffuse X-rays appear to be the brightest part of a ridge of X-ray emission that stretches for several thousand light years along the disk of the Galaxy. The extent of this ridge implies that the diffuse hot gas in this image is probably not being heated by the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way, known to astronomers as "Sgr A*".
Shock waves from supernova explosions are the most likely explanation for heating the 10-million-degree gas, but how the 100-million-degree gas is heated is not known. Ordinary supernova shock waves won't work, and heating by very high-energy particles produces the wrong spectrum of X-rays. Also, the observed Galactic magnetic field appears to rule out confinement and heating by magnetic turbulence.
It is possible that the high-energy X-ray component of the hot gas only appears to be diffuse, and is in fact due to the combined glow of an as yet undetected population of point-like sources, like the diffuse lights of a city seen at a great distance. The difficulty with this explanation is that 200,000 sources would be required in the observed region. Such a large unresolved population of sources would produce a much smoother X-ray glow than is observed. Furthermore, there is no known class of objects that could account for such a large number of high-energy X-ray sources in the center of the Milky Way.
Image credit: NASA/CXC/UCLA/MIT/M.Muno et al.
Read more about this image: www.chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2004/sgra/
Read more about Chandra: www.nasa.gov/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!
New observations from NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope trace the cooling gas that enables the Phoenix cluster to form stars at such a high rate. Previous studies of the Phoenix cluster using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, and NRAO's Very Large Array (VLA) radio telescope showed how the supermassive black hole at the center was feeding an unusually high rate of star formation. This is not typical – in other observed galaxy clusters, a supermassive black hole usually sends out energetic particles and radiation that prevents gas from cooling enough to form stars.
Chandra detects the hottest gas, which is seen in purple in this image. Jets, represented in red, are sent out from the center of the cluster, inflating cavities or bubbles in the hot gas, outlined here in purple dashes. Filaments of cooler gas where stars are forming, observed by Hubble, appear in blue.
Until Webb’s powerful spectroscopic instruments that probe the infrared, the cooling gas remained undetected. In this image, contours tracing the gas, from spectroscopic data collected by Webb, are overlaid. This intermediary warm gas was found between the cavities tracing the very hot gas, a searing 18 million degrees Fahrenheit, and the already cooled gas around 18,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
Credits: NASA, CXC, NRAO, ESA, Michael McDonald (MIT), Michael Reefe (MIT); CC BY 4.0
Editor's Note: Ten beautiful years of Chandra! This image from 2006 shows black holes getting closer and closer to each other.
This composite X-ray (blue)/radio (pink) image of the galaxy cluster Abell 400 shows radio jets immersed in a vast cloud of multimillion degree X-ray emitting gas that pervades the cluster. The jets emanate from the vicinity of two supermassive black holes (bright spots in the image). These black holes are in the dumbbell galaxy NGC 1128 (see optical image), which has produced the giant radio source, 3C 75.
The peculiar dumbbell structure of this galaxy is thought to be due to two large galaxies that are in the process of merging. Such mergers are common in the relatively congested environment of galaxy clusters. An alternative hypothesis is that the apparent structure is the result of a coincidence in time when the two galaxies are passing one another, like ships in the cosmic sea.
Careful analysis of the recent Chandra and radio data on 3C 75 indicates that the galaxies and their supermassive black holes are indeed bound together by their mutual gravity. By using the shape and direction of the radio jets, astronomers were able to determine the direction of the motion of the black holes. The swept-back appearance of the radio jets is produced by the rapid motion of the galaxy through the hot gas of the cluster, in much the same way that a motorcyclist's scarf is swept back while speeding down the road.
The binary black holes in 3C 75 are about 25,000 light years apart. They are likely at an earlier stage in their evolution than the pair found in NGC 6240, which are about 3,000 light years apart. Computer simulations indicate that binary supermassive black holes gradually spiral toward each other until they coalesce to form a single, more massive black hole, accompanied by an enormous burst of gravitational waves.
These gravitational waves would spread through the Universe and produce ripples in the fabric of space, which would appear as minute changes in the distance between any two points. Sensitive gravitational wave detectors scheduled to be operational in the next decade could detect one of these events, which are estimated to occur several times each year in the observable Universe.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/AIfA/D.Hudson & T.Reiprich et al.; Radio: NRAO/VLA/NRL
Read more about this image: www.chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2006/a400/
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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!
A powerful collision of galaxy clusters has been captured with NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and Hubble Space Telescope. Like its famous cousin, the so-called Bullet Cluster, this clash of clusters provides striking evidence for dark matter and insight into its properties.
Image credit: X-ray(NASA/CXC/Stanford/S.Allen); Optical/Lensing(NASA/STScI/UC Santa Barbara/M.Bradac)
Learn more/larger image:
www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/chandra/news/08-111.html
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!
With a diameter of about 170,000 light years, galaxy Messier 101 is nearly twice the size of the Milky Way. Its orientation allows telescopes to see its spiral structure face-on, inspiring its nickname -- the Pinwheel Galaxy. NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has obtained one of the longest exposures ever seen of a spiral galaxy in X-rays. The glowing lights indicate massive stars, black holes and supernova explosions, all wrapped in the hot gas "arms" of the galaxy.
Image credit: NASA/CXC/JHU/K.Kuntz et al.
Learn more/larger image:
www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/chandra/multimedia/photos08-17...
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!
Chandra is celebrating 10 years of operation. This image shows remarkable detail and complexity in the central region of a compact galaxy group, from 2001.
This Chandra image shows remarkable detail and complexity in the central region of the compact galaxy group known as HCG 62. Such galaxy groups, which contain fewer galaxies than the better-known galaxy clusters, are an important class of objects because they may serve as cosmic building blocks in the large-scale structure of the universe. After galaxies themselves form in the early universe, such groups of galaxies may be the next systems to evolve. Later, it is believed, these groups of galaxies may combine with each other to form the bigger galaxy clusters. Most galaxies in the present-day universe are still in groups or poor clusters. Our own Milky Way Galaxy, along with about two dozen other galaxies, including the Andromeda Nebula (M31) and the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, is part of a galaxy group known as the Local Group.
A team of scientists, led by Jan Vrtilek (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics), observed HCG 62 with Chandra for about 50,000 seconds with the Advanced CCD Imaging Spectrometer. The range of X-ray surface brightness is represented in this image by various colors: green depicts the lower-brightness regions while purple and reddish indicate increasing X-ray intensity. The image is about four minutes of arc on a side, with north to the top and east to the left.
Chandra is an excellent tool to study the intragroup gas (the material between the galaxies) since this medium is too hot (roughly ten million degrees Celsius) to emit any significant radiation at optical wavelengths, but instead radiates most strongly in X-rays. Chandra also offers by far the highest angular resolution of any X-ray telescope to date, which is essential for showing the detailed structure of a complex source such as HCG 62. Hence, this X-ray observation provides a unique window for determining the physical characteristics of the galaxy group. Perhaps the most striking features of this X-ray image of HCG 62 are the two cavities that appear nearly symmetrically opposite one another (upper left and lower right) in the hot, X-ray emitting gas. These cavities might be explained by the presence of X-ray absorbing material, but are more likely due to jets of particles recently emitted from the core of NGC 4761, the central elliptical galaxy of HCG 62, although no such jets are visible today.
Image credit: NASA/CfA/J. Vrtilek et al.
Read more about this image: www.chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2001/hcg62/
Read more about Chandra: www.nasa.gov/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!
This animation shows a yellow star that travels too close to a giant black hole in the center of the galaxy RX J1242-11. As it nears, the star is stretched by tidal forces from the black hole and is quickly torn apart. Most of the yellow gaseous debris from the star escapes the black hole in parabolic orbits. However, a small amount of material is captured by the black hole and then forms a rotating disk of gas. X-rays are emitted as the gas in the disk is heated (as shown by the blue color) and is gradually swallowed by the black hole, eventually emptying the disk.
Video credit: ESA, used with permission
More about this animation/images: www.chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2004/rxj1242/animations.html
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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!
(From 2008) This deep Chandra X-ray Observatory image shows the supernova remnant Kes 75, located almost 20,000 light years away. The explosion of a massive star created the supernova remnant, along with a pulsar, a rapidly spinning neutron star.
The low energy X-rays are colored red in this image and the high energy X-rays are colored blue. The pulsar is the bright spot near the center of the image. The rapid rotation and strong magnetic field of the pulsar have generated a wind of energetic matter and antimatter particles that rush out at near the speed of light. This pulsar wind has created a large, magnetized bubble of high-energy particles called a pulsar wind nebulae, seen as the blue region surrounding the pulsar.
The magnetic field of the pulsar in Kes 75 is thought to be more powerful than most pulsars, but less powerful than magnetars, a class of neutron star with the most powerful magnetic fields known in the Universe. Scientists are seeking to understand the relationship between these two classes of object.
Using NASA's Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE), Fotis Gavriil of Goddard Space Flight Center, and colleagues discovered powerful bursts of X-rays from this pulsar that are similar to bursts previously seen from magnetars. These bursts are believed to occur when the surface of the neutron star is disrupted by sudden changes in the magnetic field. These bursts were accompanied by magnetar-like changes in the rate of spin of the pulsar. Fortuitously, Chandra observed the pulsar near the time of the bursts and it was much brighter than it had been in Chandra observations obtained six years earlier. This brightening, and changes in the X-ray spectrum of the pulsar obtained with Chandra are also consistent with behavior expected for a magnetar. The behavior of this object may, therefore, fill a gap between that of pulsars and magnetars.
Harsha Sanjeev Kumar and Samar Safi-Harb of the University of Manitoba have independently used Chandra observations to argue that the pulsar in Kes 75 is revealing itself as a magnetar.
Read entire caption/view more images: www.chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2008/kes75/
Image credit: NASA/CXC/GSFC/F.P.Gavriil 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!
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Chandra's image of galaxy NGC 1553 shows hot gas dotted with many point-like sources. NGC 1553 is 'lenticular,' an elliptical-type galaxy with a disk of old stars. The point-like sources are due to black holes and neutron stars in binary star systems. Material pulled away from a normal star is heated and emits X-radiation as it falls toward its black hole or neutron star companion.
Image Credit: NASA/CXC/UVa/E.Blanton et al.
Learn more about Chandra: www.nasa.gov/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!
Editor's Note: Ten beautiful years of Chandra! This image from 2006 shows a neutron star in Virgo that's racing through space.
This wide-field composite image was made with X-ray (blue/ROSAT & Chandra), radio (green/Very Large Array), and optical (red/Digitized Sky Survey) observations of the supernova remnant, IC 443. The pullout, also a composite with a Chandra X-ray close-up, shows a neutron star that is spewing out a comet-like wake of high-energy particles as it races through space.
Based on an analysis of the swept-back shape of the wake, astronomers deduced that the neutron star known as CXOU J061705.3+222127, or J0617 for short, is moving through the multimillion degree Celsius gas in the remnant. However, this conclusion poses a mystery.
Although there are other examples where neutron stars have been located far away from the center of the supernova remnant, these neutron stars appear to be moving radially away from the center of the remnant. In contrast, the wake of J0617 seems to indicate it is moving almost perpendicularly to that direction.
One possible explanation is that the doomed progenitor star was moving at a high speed before it exploded, so that the explosion site was not at the observed center of the supernova remnant. Fast-moving gusts of gas inside the supernova remnant may have further pushed the pulsar's wake out of alignment. An analogous situation is observed for comets, where a wind of particles from the Sun pushes the comet tail away from the Sun, out of alignment with the comet's motion.
If this is what is happening, then observations of the neutron star with Chandra in the next 10 years should show a detectable motion away from the center of the supernova remnant.
Image credit: Chandra X-ray: NASA/CXC/B.Gaensler et al; ROSAT X-ray: NASA/ROSAT/Asaoka & Aschenbach; Radio Wide: NRC/DRAO/D.Leahy; Radio Detail: NRAO/VLA; Optical: DSS
Read more about this image: www.chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2006/ic443/
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Description: These galaxy clusters are part of a large study using Chandra and Hubble that sets new limits on how dark matter - the mysterious substance that makes up most of the matter in the Universe - interacts with itself. The hot gas that envelopes the clusters glows brightly in X-rays detected by Chandra (pink). When combined with Hubble's visible light data, astronomers can map where the stars and hot gas are after the collision, as well as the inferred distribution of dark matter (blue) through the effect of gravitational lensing.
Creator: Chandra X-ray Observatory Center
Record URL: chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2015/dark/
This image shows the eruption of a galactic “super-volcano” in the massive galaxy M87, as witnessed by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and NSF's Very Large Array (VLA). At a distance of about 50 million light years, M87 is relatively close to Earth and lies at the center of the Virgo cluster, which contains thousands of galaxies.
The cluster surrounding M87 is filled with hot gas glowing in X-ray light (and shown in blue) that is detected by Chandra. As this gas cools, it can fall toward the galaxy's center where it should continue to cool even faster and form new stars.
However, radio observations with the VLA (red) suggest that in M87 jets of very energetic particles produced by the black hole interrupt this process. These jets lift up the relatively cool gas near the center of the galaxy and produce shock waves in the galaxy's atmosphere because of their supersonic speed.
The interaction of this cosmic “eruption” with the galaxy's environment is very similar to that of the Eyjafjallajokull volcano in Iceland that occurred in 2010. With Eyjafjallajokull, pockets of hot gas blasted through the surface of the lava, generating shock waves that can be seen passing through the grey smoke of the volcano. This hot gas then rises up in the atmosphere, dragging the dark ash with it. This process can be seen in a movie of the Eyjafjallajokull volcano where the shock waves propagating in the smoke are followed by the rise of dark ash clouds into the atmosphere.
In the analogy with Eyjafjallajokull, the energetic particles produced in the vicinity of the black hole rise through the X-ray emitting atmosphere of the cluster, lifting up the coolest gas near the center of M87 in their wake. This is similar to the hot volcanic gases drag up the clouds of dark ash. And just like the volcano here on Earth, shockwaves can be seen when the black hole pumps energetic particles into the cluster gas. The energetic particles, coolest gas and shockwaves are shown in a labeled version.
Read entire caption/view more images: chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2010/m87/
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/KIPAC/N. Werner et al Radio: NSF/NRAO/AUI/W. Cotton
Caption credit: Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
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Astronomers see evidence that so-called "dark energy" is stifling growth across the cosmos. Combining new imagery from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory with previous studies of dozens of galaxies near and far, researchers are gaining new clues about the nature of dark energy and the potential future of the universe.
Image credit:
X-ray (NASA/CXC/SAO/A.Vikhlinin et al.); Optical (SDSS); Illustration (MPE/V.Springel)
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www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/chandra/multimedia/photosH08-3...
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In ancient legends, looking at Medusa turned unfortunate viewers to stone, but NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory finds the Medusa galaxy easy on the eyes. The mythological Medusa had hair of writhing snakes, while this galaxy's "hair" is a tidal tail formed by a collision between galaxies. X-ray data has pinpointed a bright ornament in the left side of Medusa's hair -- not a shining jewel, but a black hole that may hold clues to star formation.
Image credit:
X-ray: NASA/CXC/Univ. of Iowa/P. Kaaret et al. Optical: NASA/ESA/ STScI/Univ. of Iowa/P. Kaaret et al.
Read full caption:
www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/chandra/multimedia/photo09-018...
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The composite image on the left shows X-ray and optical data for BP Piscium (BP Psc), a more evolved version of our Sun about 1,000 light years from Earth. Chandra X-ray Observatory data are colored in purple, and optical data from the 3-meter Shane telescope at Lick Observatory are shown in orange, green and blue. BP Psc is surrounded by a dusty and gaseous disk and has a pair of jets several light years long blasting out of the system. A close-up view is shown by the artist's impression on the right. For clarity a narrow jet is shown, but the actual jet is probably much wider, extending across the inner regions of the disk. Because of the dusty disk, the star’s surface is obscured in optical and near infrared light. Therefore, the Chandra observation is the first detection of this star in any wavelength.
The disk and the jets, seen distinctly in the optical data, provide evidence for a recent and catastrophic interaction in which BP Psc consumed a nearby star or giant planet. This happened when BP Psc ran out of nuclear fuel and expanded into its "red giant" phase.
Jets and a disk are often characteristics of very young stars, so astronomers thought BP Psc might be one as well. However, the new Chandra results argue against this interpretation, because the X-ray source is fainter than expected for a young star. Another argument previously used against the possible youth of BP Psc was that it is not located near any star-forming cloud and there are no other known young stars in its immediate vicinity. The Chandra image supports this absence of a cluster of young stars, since multiwavelength studies show that most of the X-ray sources in the composite image are likely to be rapidly growing supermassive black holes in the centers of distant galaxies.
Credits: X-ray: NASA/CXC/RIT/J. Kastner et al. Optical: UCO/Lick/STScI/M. Perrin et al. Illustration: CXC/M. Weiss
Read entire caption/view more images: chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2010/bppsc/
Caption credit: Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
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Ten beautiful years of Chandra! This image from 2001 explores a "hot halo" around spiral galaxy NGC 4631.
This image shows central region of the spiral galaxy NGC 4631 as seen edge-on from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and Hubble Space Telescope. The Chandra data (shown in blue and purple) provide the first unambiguous evidence for a halo of hot gas surrounding a galaxy that is very similar to our Milky Way. The structure across the middle of the image and the extended faint filaments (shown in orange) represent the observation from Hubble that reveals giant bursting bubbles created by clusters of massive stars. Scientists have debated for over 40 years whether the Milky Way has an extended corona, or halo, of hot gas. Observations of NGC 4631 and similar galaxies provide astronomers with an important tool in the understanding our own galactic environment.
A team of astronomers, led by Daniel Wang of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, observed NGC 4631 with Chandra's Advanced CCD Imaging Spectrometer (ACIS) instrument. The observation took place on April 15, 2000, and its duration was approximately 60,000 seconds.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/UMass/D.Wang et al., Optical: NASA/HST/D.Wang et al.
Read more about this image: www.chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2001/m15/
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Editor's Note: Something a little different than my usual posts, too good not to share. It's a fascinating concept that compares astronomy images from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory to various Earth images, drawing parallels of composition and color. The series is called "From the Earth to the Heavens." Please view in large to get the best view of images and clear text.
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From the back of the postcard, supplementing the text in the graphic:
On the right, the images of the cosmos are from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. Chandra's X-ray images reveal the regions of the Universe where highly energetic and violent phenomena shine. Images on the left are aerial photographs taken of our home planet as part of Yann Arthus-Bertrand's "The Earth from Above" project.
Image Copyright, Yann Arthus-Bertrand "Earth From Above" publisher Abrams www.yannarthusbertrand.org and www.goodplanet.org.
A huge thank- you to the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, a NASA partner, for creating these gorgeous cards and making them available to us.
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Editor's Note: Ten beautiful years of Chandra! This image from 2004 shows an explosion that sent a shock wave rumbling through space.
The Chandra image of SNR 0540-69.3 clearly shows two aspects of the enormous power released when a massive star explodes.An implosion crushed material into an extremely dense (10 miles in diameter) neutron star, triggering an explosion that sent a shock wave rumbling through space at speeds in excess of 5 million miles per hour.
The image reveals a central intense white blaze of high-energy particles about 3 light years across created by the rapidly rotating neutron star, or pulsar. Surrounding the white blaze is a shell of hot gas 40 light years in diameter that marks the outward progress of the supernova shock wave.
the pulsar is generating power at a rate equivalent to 30,000 Suns. This pulsar is remarkably similar to the famous Crab Nebula pulsar, although they are seen at vastly different distances, 160,000 light years versus 6,000 light years. Both SNR 0540-69.3 and the Crab pulsar are rotating rapidly, and are about a thousand years old. Both pulsars are pumping out enormous amounts of X-radiation and high-energy particles, and both are immersed in magnetized clouds of high-energy particles that are a few light years in diameter. Both clouds are luminous X-ray sources, and in both cases the high-energy clouds are surrounded by a filamentary web of cool gas that shows up at optical wavelengths.
However, the extensive outer shell of 50 million degree Celsius gas in SNR 0540-69.3 has no counterpart in the Crab Nebula. This difference is thought to be due to environmental factors. The massive star that exploded to create SNR 0540-69.3 was evidently in a region where there was an appreciable amount of gas. The supernova shock wave swept up and heated the surrounding gas and created the extensive hot X-ray shell. A similar shock wave presumably exists around the Crab Nebula, but the amount of available gas is apparently too small to produce a detectable amount of X-radiation.
Image credit: NASA/CXC/SAO
Read more about this image: www.chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2004/snr0540/
Read more about Chandra: www.nasa.gov/chandra
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At Launch Pad 39B, the Space Shuttle Columbia's payload bay doors close around the Chandra X-ray Observatory inside, while workers monitor the activity. Chandra was the primary payload on mission STS-93, scheduled to launch aboard Columbia July 20 at 12:36 a.m. EDT. The combined Chandra/Inertial Upper Stage, seen here, measured 57 feet long and weighs 50,162 pounds. Fully deployed with solar arrays extended, the observatory measured 45.3 feet long and 64 feet wide. The world's most powerful X-ray telescope, Chandra allowed scientists from around the world to see previously invisible black holes and high-temperature gas clouds, giving the observatory the potential to rewrite the books on the structure and evolution of our universe.
Credit: NASA
Image Number: 99PP-0854
Date: July 17, 1999
Chandra is celebrating 10 years of operation. This 2006 image shows a "young" nebula in Sagittarius.
This composite image from Chandra and Hubble Space Telescope of Hen 3-1475 shows X-rays from a young planetary nebula about 18,000 light years from Earth, located in the constellation Sagittarius.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/RIT/J.Kastner et al.; Optical/IR: BD +30 & Hen 3: NASA/STScI/Univ. MD/J.P.Harrington; NGC 7027: NASA/STScI/Caltech/J.Westphal & W.Latter; Mz 3: NASA/STScI/Univ. Washington/B.Balick
Read more about this image: www.chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2006/pne/more.html
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Description: These galaxy clusters are part of a large study using Chandra and Hubble that sets new limits on how dark matter - the mysterious substance that makes up most of the matter in the Universe - interacts with itself. The hot gas that envelopes the clusters glows brightly in X-rays detected by Chandra (pink). When combined with Hubble's visible light data, astronomers can map where the stars and hot gas are after the collision, as well as the inferred distribution of dark matter (blue) through the effect of gravitational lensing.
Creator: Chandra X-ray Observatory Center
Record URL: chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2015/dark/
Description: These galaxy clusters are part of a large study using Chandra and Hubble that sets new limits on how dark matter - the mysterious substance that makes up most of the matter in the Universe - interacts with itself. The hot gas that envelopes the clusters glows brightly in X-rays detected by Chandra (pink). When combined with Hubble's visible light data, astronomers can map where the stars and hot gas are after the collision, as well as the inferred distribution of dark matter (blue) through the effect of gravitational lensing.
Creator: Chandra X-ray Observatory Center
Record URL: chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2015/dark/
Ten beautiful years of Chandra! This image from 2005 shows elliptical galaxy M87 in the Virgo Cluster.
A striking example of the power and effervescence of supermassive black holes is shown in this composite image of the elliptical galaxy M87 in the Virgo Cluster. The features in this image imply that outbursts and deep sounds have been generated by the black hole for eons.
The black hole located in the center of M87 is one of the most massive in the universe. The huge reservoir of hot gas in this cluster is shown in this low energy X-ray image from the Chandra X-ray Observatory (red). An optical image from the Digitized Sky Survey shows stars in M87 in blue.
A series of unevenly spaced loops and bubbles are visible in the hot gas below and to the left of the center of M87. These features are produced by small outbursts from close to the black hole about once every 6 million years. The sound waves generated by these outbursts, not visible in this image, will be incredibly deep, about 56 octaves below middle C. Because the outbursts are unevenly spaced the sound will be more like noise from the black hole rather than a harmonious musical performance.
A shock wave -- similar to a sonic boom -- is detected in a separate Chandra image of M87 that shows high energy X-rays. This shock was produced by a powerful outburst from the black hole about 20 million years ago. The properties of the shock, including the change in temperature and density in the gas, are consistent with classical physics. A large bubble in the X-ray gas shows another powerful outburst occurred about 50 million years earlier. The long interval between these two outbursts provides evidence for even deeper sounds, 58 or 59 octaves below middle C.
Other remarkable features are seen in M87 for the first time including narrow filaments of X-ray emission, which may be due to hot gas trapped to magnetic fields. One of these filaments is over 100,000 light years long, and extends below and to the right of the center of M87 in almost a straight line.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/CfA/W.Forman et al.; Optical: DSS
Read more about this image: www.chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2006/m87/
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Editor's Note: This is an archive image from 2003.
Chandra's X-ray image (blue) has been combined with Hubble's optical image (red and green) to compose this stunning and revealing picture of the spiral galaxy NGC 3079. Towering filaments consisting of warm (about ten thousand degrees Celsius) and hot (about ten million degrees Celsius) gas blend to create the bright horseshoe-shaped feature near the center.
The correlation of the warm and hot filaments suggests that they were both formed as a superwind of gas -- rushing out from the central regions of the galaxy -- carved a cavity in the cool gas of disk galactic disk. The superwind stripped fragments of gas off the walls of the cavity, stretched them into long filaments, and heated them. The full extent of the superwind shows up as a fainter conical cloud of X-ray emission surrounding the filaments.
A superwind, such as the one in NGC 3079 originates in the center of the galaxy, either from activity generated by a central supermassive black hole, or by a burst of supernova activity. Superwinds are thought to play a key role in the evolution of galaxies by regulating the formation of new stars, and by dispersing heavy elements to the outer parts of the galaxy and beyond. These latest Chandra data indicate that astronomers may be seriously underestimating the mass lost in superwinds and therefore their influence within and around the host galaxy.
Read entire caption/view more images: chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2003/ngc3079/
Image credit: NASA/CXC/STScI/U.North Carolina/G.Cecil
Caption credit: Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
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For millennia, musicians have looked to the heavens for inspiration. Now a new collaboration is enabling actual data from NASA telescopes to be used as the basis for original music that can be played by humans.
Since 2020, the "sonification" project at NASA's Chandra X-ray Center has translated the digital data taken by telescopes into notes and sounds. This process allows the listener to experience the data through the sense of hearing instead of seeing it as images, a more common way to present astronomical data.
A new phase of the sonification project takes the data into different territory. Working with composer Sophie Kastner, the team has developed versions of the data that can be played by musicians.
In this video, a musical ensemble performs soundscape that composer Sophie Katsner created using data sonifications from NASA’s Chandra, Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes. Based in Montreal, Ensemble Éclat is dedicated to the performance of contemporary classical music and promoting the works of emerging composers.
Video Credit: NASA/CXC/A. Jubett & Priam David
#NASAMarshall #NASA #astrophysics #astronomy #chandra #NASAChandra #NASA #sonification
Editor's Note: This is an archive image from 2002.
Chandra's image of the elliptical galaxy NGC 4649 reveals a large, bright cloud of hot gas and 165 point-like sources. As in the elliptical galaxies, NGC 4697 and NGC 1553, most of the point-like sources are due to black holes and neutron stars in binary star systems.
Black holes and neutron stars are the end state of the brightest and most massive stars. Chandra's detection of numerous neutron stars and black holes in this and other elliptical galaxies shows that these galaxies once contained many very bright, massive stars, in marked contrast to the present population of low-mass faint stars that now dominate elliptical galaxies.
Many of the X-ray binaries are in "globular star clusters," round balls of stars that contain about one million stars in a volume where typically only one would be found. This suggests that the extraordinarily dense environment of globular clusters may be a good place for black holes or neutron stars to capture a companion star.
The hot gas cloud filling the galaxy has a temperature of about 10 million degrees Celsius. In the bright central region there appear to be bright fingers of X-ray emission which could be due to rising cells of hot gas.
Read entire caption/view more images: www.chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2002/1139/
Image credit: NASA/CXC/UVa/S.Randall et al.
Caption credit: Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
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