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This image of the Crab Nebula combines data from NASA’s Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) in magenta and NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory in dark purple.
IXPE data show that the Crab Nebula’s magnetic field resembles that of the Vela Pulsar Wind Nebula, which is also donut-shaped. But at the Crab, scientists were surprised that areas of magnetic field turbulence were more patchy and asymmetrical than expected.
Image credit: X-ray (IXPE: NASA), (Chandra: NASA/CXC/SAO) Image processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/K. Arcand & L. Frattare
#NASAMarshall #NASA #IXPE #astrophysics #astronomy #chandra #NASAChandra #galaxy
This galaxy is part of a large survey of more than 100 galaxies conducted by Chandra that looked for evidence of growing black holes. A new study uncovered evidence that stellar-mass black holes in these dense environments are ripping apart multiple stars, and then using their debris to fuel their growth. The Chandra results provide one pathway for the creation of "intermediate mass black holes," a class that are bigger than the stellar-mass variety but smaller than supermassive black holes. Chandra data is shown with optical images from the Hubble Space Telescope.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Washington State Univ./V. Baldassare et al.; Optical: NASA/ESA/STScI
#NASAMarshall #Chandra #galaxy #star #blackhole
In time for Valentine’s Day, NASA’s Imaging X-Ray Polarimetry Explorer which launched Dec. 9, 2021, has delivered its first imaging data since completing its month-long commissioning phase.
All instruments are functioning well aboard the observatory, which is on a quest to study some of the most mysterious and extreme objects in the universe.
IXPE first focused its X-ray eyes on Cassiopeia A, an object consisting of the remains of a star that exploded in the 17th century. The shock waves from the explosion have swept up surrounding gas, heating it to high temperatures and accelerating cosmic ray particles to make a cloud that glows in X-ray light. Other telescopes have studied Cassiopeia A before, but IXPE will allow researchers to examine it in a new way.
In the image above, the saturation of the magenta color corresponds to the intensity of X-ray light observeded by IXPE. It overlays high energy X-ray data, shown in blue, from NASA’s Chandra X-Ray Observatory. Chandra and IXPE, with different kinds of detectors, capture different levels of angular resolution, or sharpness. An additional version of this image is available showing only IXPE data. These images contain IXPE data collected from Jan. 11 to 18.
Image credit: NASA
#NASAMarshall #Chandra #IXPE #astronomy #solarsystemandbeyond
Astronomers have made the most extensive study yet of how magnetically active stars are when they are young. This gives scientists a window into how X-rays from stars like the Sun, but billions of years younger, could partially or completely evaporate the atmospheres of planets orbiting them.
Many stars begin their lives in “open clusters,” loosely packed groups of stars with up to a few thousand members, all formed roughly at the same time. This makes open clusters valuable for astronomers investigating the evolution of stars and planets, because they allow the study of many stars of similar ages forged in the same environment.
A team of astronomers led by Konstantin Getman of Penn State University studied a sample of over 6,000 stars in 10 different open clusters with ages between 7 million and 25 million years. One of the goals of this study was to learn how the magnetic activity levels of stars like our Sun change during the first tens of millions of years after they form. Getman and his colleagues used NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory for this study because stars that have more activity linked to magnetic fields are brighter in X-rays.
They combined their results for the open clusters with previously published Chandra studies of stars as young as 500,000 years old. The team found that the X-ray brightness of young, Sun-like stars is roughly constant for the first few million years, and then fades from 7 to 25 million years of age. This decrease happens more quickly for heftier stars.
This composite image shows one of those clusters, NGC 3293, which is 11 million years old and is located about 8,300 light-years from Earth in the Milky Way galaxy. The image contains X-rays from Chandra (purple) as well as infrared data from ESA’s Herschel Space Observatory (red), longer-wavelength infrared data from NASA’s retired Spitzer Space Telescope (blue and white), and optical data from the MPG/ESO 2.2-meter telescope at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile appearing as red, white and blue.
Image credit: NASA/CXC/Penn State Univ./K. Getman et al.; Infrared: ESA/NASA JPL-Caltech/Herschel Space Observatory/JPL/IPAC; NASA JPL-Caltech/SSC/Spitzer Space Telescope; Optical: MPG/ESO/G. Beccari
#NASAMarshall #Chandra #NASAChandra #ChandraXrayObservatory #stars #supernovaremnant #starcluster
A dramatic 2008 Chandra image of the nearby galaxy Centaurus A provides one of the best views of the effects of an active supermassive black hole. Opposing jets of high-energy particles can be seen extending to the outer reaches of the galaxy, and numerous smaller black holes in binary star systems are also visible. This multi-panel shows the Chandra image in context with radio and optical data.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/CfA/R.Kraft et al; Radio: NSF/VLA/Univ.Hertfordshire/M.Hardcastle; Optical: ESO/WFI/M.Rejkuba et al.
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This galaxy resembles a bull's eye, which is appropriate because its appearance is partly due to a smaller galaxy that passed through the middle of this object. The violent collision produced shock waves that swept through the galaxy and triggered large amounts of star formation. X-rays from Chandra (purple) show disturbed hot gas initially hosted by the Cartwheel galaxy being dragged over more than 150,000 light years by the collision. Optical data from Hubble (red, green, and blue) show where this collision may have triggered the star formation.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC; Optical: NASA/STScI
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Since July 4th is a time when many enjoy fireworks, here is this image of a supernova that looks a lot like a fireworks explosion. Explosions of actual stars are a focus for scientists who hope to better understand their births, lives, and deaths and how they interact with their surroundings. Using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory in 2015, astronomers have studied one particular explosion that may provide clues to the dynamics of other, much larger stellar eruptions. This is an image of GK Persei, an object that became a sensation in the astronomical world in 1901 when it suddenly appeared as one of the brightest stars in the sky for a few days.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/RIKEN/D.Takei et al; Optical: NASA/STScI; Radio: NRAO/VLA
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In celebration of July 4th, we give you NGC 6946, 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.
Image credit: NASA/CXC/MSSL/R.Soria et al, Optical: AURA/Gemini OBs)
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About 10,000 years ago, light from the explosion of a giant star in the constellation Vela arrived at Earth. This supernova left behind a dense object called a pulsar, which appears to brighten regularly as it spins, like a cosmic lighthouse. From the surface of this pulsar, winds of particles emerge that travel near the speed of light, creating a chaotic hodgepodge of charged particles and magnetic fields that crash into surrounding gas. This phenomenon is called a pulsar wind nebula.
In this new image, the hazy light blue halo corresponds to the first-ever X-ray polarization data for Vela, which comes from NASA’s Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer, or IXPE. A faint blue fuzzy line pointing to the upper right-hand corner corresponds to a jet of high-energy particles shooting out from the pulsar at about half the speed of light. The pink X-ray "arcs" are thought to mark the edges of donut-shaped regions where the pulsar wind shocks and accelerates high-energy particles. The pulsar itself is located at the white circle at the center of the image.
Light blue represents X-ray polarization data from NASA’s Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer. Pink and purple colors correspond to data from NASA’s Chandra X-Ray observatory, which has observed Vela several times previously. NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope contributed the stars in the background.
Image credit: X-ray: (IXPE) NASA/MSFC/Fei Xie & (Chandra) NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: NASA/STScI Hubble/Chandra processing by Judy Schmidt; Hubble/Chandra/IXPE processing & compositing by NASA/CXC/SAO/Kimberly Arcand & Nancy Wolk
#NASAMarshall #NASA #IXPE #astrophysics #astronomy #chandra #NASAChandra #supernova #supernovaremnant #pulsar
Read more about NASA’s Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE)
Many factors can limit the size of a group, including external ones that members have no control over. Astronomers have found that groups of stars in certain environments, however, can regulate themselves.
A new study has revealed stars in a cluster having “self-control,” meaning that they allow only a limited number of stars to grow before the biggest and brightest members expel most of the gas from the system. This process should drastically slow down the birth of new stars, which would better align with astronomers’ predictions for how quickly stars form in clusters.
This study combines data from several telescopes including NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, NASA's now-retired Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), the APEX (the Atacama Pathfinder EXperiment) telescope, and ESA’s (European Space Agency’s) retired Herschel telescope.
The target of the observations was RCW 36, a large cloud of gas called an HII (pronounced "H-two") region mainly composed of hydrogen atoms that have been ionized — that is, stripped of their electrons. This star-forming complex is located in the Milky Way about 2,900 light-years from Earth. Infrared data from Herschel is shown in red, orange, and green, and X-ray data is blue, with point sources in white. North is 32 degrees left of vertical.
Image credit: X-ray: Chandra: NASA/CXC/U.Wisc-Madison/S. Heinz et al.; Swift: NASA/Swift/Univ. of Leicester/A. Beardmore; Optical: DSS; Sonification: NASA/CXC/SAO/K.Arcand, SYSTEM Sounds (M. Russo, A. Santaguida)
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This composite image of BD+30-3639 shows a hot bubble of multimillion degree gas surrounding a dying, Sun-like star that is about 5,000 light years from Earth. The distance across the bubble is roughly 100 times the diameter of our solar system.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/STScI/Univ. MD/J.P.Harrington
#NASA #MarshallSpaceFlightCenter #MSFC #Marshall #ChandraXrayObservatory #cxo #HubbleSpaceTelescope #HST #astronomy #space #astrophysics #solarsystemandbeyond #gsfc #Goddard #GoddardSpaceFlightCenter #ESA #EuropeanSpaceAgency #galaxy
This 2006 Chandra X-ray image shows the expanding ring of debris that was created after a massive star in the Milky Way collapsed onto itself and exploded. The image shows low energy X-rays in red, medium energies in green and high energies in blue. The Chandra observations focused on the northeast (left-hand) side of RCW 86, and show that X-ray radiation is produced both by high-energy electrons accelerated in a magnetic field (blue) as well as heat from the blast itself (red). The data revealed that RCW 86 was created by a star that exploded about 2,000 years ago. This age matches observations of a new bright star by Chinese astronomers in 185 A.D. (and possibly Romans as well) and may be the oldest known recordings of a supernova.
Image credit: Chandra: NASA/CXC/Univ. of Utrecht/J.Vink et al. XMM-Newton: ESA/Univ. of Utrecht/J.Vink et al.
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This 2009 image of Centaurus A shows a spectacular new view of a supermassive black hole's power. Jets and lobes powered by the central black hole in this nearby galaxy are shown by submillimeter data (colored orange) from the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX) telescope in Chile and X-ray data (colored blue) from the Chandra X-ray Observatory. Visible light data from the Wide Field Imager on the Max-Planck/ESO 2.2 m telescope, also located in Chile, shows the dust lane in the galaxy and background stars. The X-ray jet in the upper left extends for about 13,000 light years away from the black hole. The APEX data shows that material in the jet is travelling at about half the speed of light.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/CfA/R.Kraft et al.; Submillimeter: MPIfR/ESO/APEX/A.Weiss et al.; Optical: ESO/WFI
This is a Great Observatory view of the famous Sombrero galaxy from 2007 using the Chandra, Hubble and Spitzer telescopes. The far left figure shows the composite image and the three images to its right show the separate observatory views. The Chandra X-ray image (blue) shows hot gas in the galaxy and point sources that are a mixture of galaxy members and background objects. The Hubble optical image (green) shows a bulge of starlight partially blocked by a rim of dust. The Spitzer image (red) shows the rim of dust glowing in the infrared and a central bulge of stars.
Credit: X-ray: NASA/UMass/Q.D.Wang et al.; Optical: NASA/STScI/AURA/Hubble Heritage; Infrared: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. AZ/R.Kennicutt/SINGS Team
#NASAMarshall #Chandra #galaxy #SombreroGalaxy
This image from the Chandra X-ray Observatory show the dusty remains of a collapsed star. The white source at the center is a pulsar that is generating wind of high-energy particles seen by Chandra that expands into the surrounding environment. The infrared shell that surrounds this pulsar wind is made up of gas and dust that condensed out of debris from the supernova explosion. The nature and quantity of dust produced in supernova explosions is a long-standing mystery, and G54.1+0.3 supplies an important piece to the puzzle.
Image credit: NASA/CXC/SAO/P.Slane et al.;
#NASAMarshall #NASA #astrophysics #astronomy #chandra #NASAChandra #NASA #pulsar
When a star like the Sun runs out of fuel, it expands and its outer layers puff off, and then the core of the star shrinks. This phase is known as a "planetary nebula," and astronomers expect our Sun will experience this in about 5 billion years. This Helix Nebula images contains infrared data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope (green and red), optical light from Hubble (orange and blue), ultraviolet from NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer (cyan), and Chandra's X-rays (appearing as white) showing the white dwarf star that formed in the center of the nebula. The image is about four light years across.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC; Ultraviolet: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSC; Optical: NASA/STScI(M. Meixner)/ESA/NRAO(T.A. Rector); Infrared: NASA/JPL-Caltech/K. Su
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NGC 4258 is a spiral galaxy about 25 million light years from Earth, also known as M106. The Chandra image of NGC 4258 reveals the so-called anomalous arms. These mysterious structures are due to shock waves generated by the supermassive black hole in the nucleus of the galaxy.
Image credit: NASA/CXC/Univ. of Maryland/A.S. Wilson et al.
#NASAMarshall #Chandra #astronomy #solarsystemandbeyond #galaxy
Galaxy clusters, the largest structures in the universe held together by gravity, are dynamic environments containing individual galaxies and huge amounts of hot gas and dark matter. Often, an enormous black hole in the center of a cluster can help drive its behavior. In the galaxy cluster Abell 2597, a giant central supermassive black hole is driving the gas outward and creating bubbles, or voids, within it. This composite image of Abell 2597 includes X-rays from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory (blue), optical data from the Digitized Sky Survey (orange), and emission from hydrogen atoms in optical light from the Las Campanas Observatory in Chile (red).
Image credit: NASA/CXC/SAO
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This stunning 2005 picture of the supernova remnant Cassiopeia A (Cas A) is a composite of images taken by three of NASA's Great Observatories. Infrared data from the Spitzer Space Telescope are colored red; optical data from the Hubble Space Telescope are yellow; and X-ray data from the Chandra X-ray Observatory are green and blue.
Cas A is the 300-year-old remnant created by the supernova explosion of a massive star. Each Great Observatory image highlights different characteristics of the remnant. Spitzer reveals warm dust in the outer shell with temperatures of about 10 degrees Celsius (80 degrees Fahrenheit), and Hubble sees the delicate filamentary structures of warmer gases about 10,000 degrees Celsius. Chandra shows hot gases at about 10 million degrees Celsius. This hot gas was created when ejected material from the supernova smashed into surrounding gas and dust at speeds of about ten million miles per hour.
A comparison of the infrared and X-ray images of Cas A should enable astronomers to better understand how relatively cool dust grains can coexist in the superhot gas that produces the X-rays. It should also help to determine whether most of the dust in the supernova remnant came from the massive star before it exploded, or from the rapidly expanding supernova ejecta.
The turquoise dot at the center of the shell may be a neutron star created during the supernova. Blue Chandra data were acquired using broadband X-rays (low through high energies); green Chandra data correspond only to intermediate energy X-rays; yellow Hubble data were taken using a 900 nanometer-wavelength filter, and red Spitzer data are from the telescope's 24-micron detector.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: NASA/STScI; Infrared: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Steward/O.Krause et al.
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Astronomers have captured a spectacular, ongoing collision between at least three galaxy clusters. Data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, ESA’s (European Space Agency’s) XMM-Newton, and a trio of radio telescopes is helping astronomers sort out what is happening in this jumbled scene. Collisions and mergers like this are the main way that galaxy clusters can grow into the gigantic cosmic edifices seen today. These also act as the largest particle accelerators in the universe.
The giant galaxy cluster forming from this collision is Abell 2256, located 780 million light-years from Earth. This composite image of Abell 2256 combines X-rays from Chandra and XMM in blue with radio data collected by the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT), the Low Frequency Array (LOFAR), and the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) all in red, plus optical and infrared data from Pan-STARRs in white and pale yellow.
Astronomers studying this object are trying to tease out what has led to this unusual-looking structure. Each telescope tells a different part of the story. Galaxy clusters are some of the biggest objects in the universe containing hundreds or even thousands of individual galaxies. In addition, they contain enormous reservoirs of superheated gas, with temperatures of several million degrees Fahrenheit. Only X-ray telescopes like Chandra and XMM can see this hot gas. A labeled version of the figure shows gas from two of the galaxy clusters, with the third blended too closely to separate from the others.
Image credit: X-ray: Chandra: NASA/CXC/Univ. of Bolonga/K. Rajpurohit et al.; XMM-Newton: ESA/XMM-Newton/Univ. of Bolonga/K. Rajpurohit et al. Radio: LOFAR: LOFAR/ASTRON; GMRT: NCRA/TIFR/GMRT; VLA: NSF/NRAO/VLA; Optical/IR: Pan-STARRS
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In this 2007 Chandra X-ray image of the Andromeda Galaxy, hot, X-ray bright gas is seen to envelop the middle of Andromeda. Point sources are also prominent, which mostly reveal pairs of stars that are interacting with each other. Many of these double stars are thought to include white dwarfs pulling large amounts of material away from a companion star. When the amount of gas being dumped onto the white dwarf gets too high a thermonuclear explosion occurs on the surface of the white dwarf, emitting bright X-rays.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/MPE/W.Pietsch et al; Optical: NOAO/AURA/NSF/T.Rector & B.A.Wolpa
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Andromeda, a large spiral galaxy much like our Milky Way Galaxy, is relatively nearby and can be easily seen with binoculars in the autumn sky. The galaxy's central region is called the galactic bulge because the stars form a ball a few thousand light years in diameter that extends above and below the disk of the galaxy. In this Chandra/Spitzer composite, red represents Spitzer's 24 micron mid-infrared data, green represents low-energy X-rays from Chandra (0.5-2.0 keV), and blue represents high-energy X-rays from Chandra (2.0-4.0 keV).
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/UMass/Z.Li & Q.D.Wang; Infrared: NASA/JPL-Caltech
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While astronomers have seen the debris from scores of exploded stars in the Milky Way and nearby galaxies, it is often difficult to determine the timeline of the star's demise. By studying the spectacular remains of a supernova in a neighboring galaxy using NASA telescopes, a team of astronomers has found enough clues to help wind back the clock.
The supernova remnant called SNR 0519-69.0 (SNR 0519 for short) is the debris from an explosion of a white dwarf star. After reaching a critical mass, either by pulling matter from a companion star or merging with another white dwarf, the star underwent a thermonuclear explosion and was destroyed. Scientists use this type of supernova, called a Type Ia, for a wide range of scientific studies ranging from studies of thermonuclear explosions to measuring distances to galaxies across billions of light-years.
SNR 0519 is located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small galaxy 160,000 light-years from Earth. This composite image shows X-ray data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and optical data from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. X-rays from SNR 0519 with low, medium and high energies are shown in green, blue, and purple respectively, with some of these colors overlapping to appear white. Optical data shows the perimeter of the remnant in red and stars around the remnant in white.
Astronomers combined the data from Chandra and Hubble with data from NASA's retired Spitzer Space telescope to determine how long ago the star in SNR 0519 exploded and learn about the environment the supernova occurred in. This data provides scientists a chance to "rewind" the movie of the stellar evolution that has played out since and figure out when it got started.
The researchers compared Hubble images from 2010, 2011, and 2020 to measure the speeds of material in the blast wave from the explosion, which range from about 3.8 million to 5.5 million miles (9 million kilometers) per hour. If the speed was toward the upper end of those estimated speeds, the astronomers determined that light from the explosion would have reached Earth about 670 years ago, or during the Hundred Years’ War between England and France and the height of the Ming dynasty in China.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/GSFC/B. J. Williams et al.; Optical: NASA/ESA/STScI
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A 2009 study unveiled NGC 604, the largest region of star formation in the nearby galaxy M33, in its first deep, high-resolution view in X- rays. This composite image from Chandra X-ray Observatory data (colored blue), combined with optical light data from the Hubble Space Telescope (red and green), shows a divided neighborhood where some 200 hot, young, massive stars reside.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/CfA/R. Tuellmann et al.; Optical: NASA/AURA/ STScI
A long Chandra exposure in 2006 of M87 revealed a shock wave in high-energy X-rays as well as evidence for a series of outbursts from the central supermassive black hole. The image shows a series of loops and bubbles in the hot, X-ray emitting gas. These are relics of small outbursts from close to the black hole. 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: NASA/CXC/CfA/W.Forman et al.
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This 2008 view of the Bullet Cluster, located about 3.8 billion light years from Earth, shows data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. This cluster, officially known as 1E 0657-56, was formed after the violent collision of two large clusters of galaxies. Scientists have examined this system with Chandra and Compton to look for evidence of antimatter in the cluster's hot gas. The results did not reveal the signature for the collision of matter and antimatter, meaning that there is little or no antimatter in the Bullet Cluster, at most 3 parts per million. The X-ray emission shows the amount of hot gas in this system.
Image credit: NASA/CXC/CfA/M.Markevitch et al.
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After a massive star exploded, it left behind this supernova remnant observed by Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Hubble Space Telescope. The Chandra data (red, green and blue) show multimillion-degree gas and the blast wave from the supernova. The light brown region in the upper right of the remnant is a dense cloud of gas and dust that reflects optical light detected by Hubble.
This image is part of a collection of archiveed images made by “astronomy artist” Judy Schmidt, to help recognize #ArchivesMonth. All of the objects in this new archive collection are located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, or LMC, which is a small satellite galaxy to Milky Way.
This year, NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory celebrates its 20th year in space exploring the extreme universe.
Image credit: Enhanced Image by Judy Schmidt (CC BY-NC-SA) based on images provided courtesy of NASA/CXC/SAO & NASA/STScI.
More about Chandra's 20th Anniversary
Astronomers may have witnessed a galaxy’s black hole delivery system in action. A new study using data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and Hubble Space Telescope outlines how a large black hole may have been delivered to the spiral galaxy NGC 4424 by another, smaller galaxy.
NGC 4424 is located about 54 million light-years from Earth in the Virgo galaxy cluster. The main panel of this image, which has been previously released, shows a wide-field view of this galaxy in optical light from Hubble. The image is about 45,000 light-years wide. The center of this galaxy is expected to host a large black hole estimated to contain a mass between about 60,000 and 100,000 Suns. There are also likely to be millions of stellar-mass black holes, which contain between about 5 and 30 solar masses, spread throughout the galaxy.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Swinburne Univ. of Technology/A. Graham et al.; Optical: NASA/ESA/STScI
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When two galaxies are in the process of merging, the gravitational interaction can trigger waves of star formation. This is the case for NGC 4490, a spiral galaxy that has collided with a smaller galaxy to the upper right but not seen in this image. Scientists think that these two galaxies have already had their closest approach and are now separating from one another. Some of the point-like sources of X-rays represent stellar-mass black holes and neutron stars within the galaxy. In this image of NGC 4490, X-rays from Chandra (purple) have been combined with an optical image from Hubble (red, green, and blue).
Image credit: NASA/CXC/SAO
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W3 Main is a region of a massive star formation about 6,000 light years from Earth in the Perseus arm of the Milky Way. The bright, point-like X-ray sources represent an extensive population of several hundred young stars, many of which were not found in earlier studies. Because its X-ray sources are all at the same distance, yet span a range of masses, ages, and other properties, W3 is an ideal laboratory for understanding recent and ongoing star formation in one of the Milky Way's spiral arms.
Image credit: NASA/CXC/Penn State/L.Townsley et al.
#NASAMarshall #Chandra #astronomy #solarsystemandbeyond #star
One of the surprising features of black holes is that although light (such as radio, visible, and X-rays) cannot escape from them, surrounding material can produce intense bursts of electromagnetic radiation. As they travel outward, these blasts of light can bounce off clouds of gas and dust in space, similar to how light beams from a car’s headlight will scatter off fog.
A new sonification turns these “light echoes” from the black hole called V404 Cygni into sound. Located about 7,800 light-years from Earth, V404 Cygni is a system that contains a black hole, with a mass between five and 10 times the Sun’s, that is pulling material from a companion star in orbit around it. The material is funneled into a disk that encircles the stellar-mass black hole.
This material periodically generates bursts of radiation, including X-rays. As the X-rays travel outward they encounter clouds of gas and dust in between V404 Cygni and Earth and are scattered at various angles. NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory have imaged the X-ray light echoes around V404 Cygni. Because astronomers know exactly how fast light travels and have determined an accurate distance to this system, they can calculate when these eruptions occurred. This data, plus other information, helps astronomers learn more about the dust clouds, including their composition and distances.
The sonification of V404 Cygni translates the X-ray data from both Chandra and Swift into sound. During the sonification, the cursor moves outward from the center of the image in a circle. As it passes through the light echoes detected in X-rays (seen as concentric rings in blue by Chandra and red by Swift in the image), there are tick-like sounds and changes in volume to denote the detection of X-rays and the variations in brightness. To differentiate between the data from the two telescopes, Chandra data is represented by higher-frequency tones while the Swift data is lower. In addition to the X-rays, the image includes optical data from the Digitized Sky Survey that shows background stars. Each star in optical light triggers a musical note. The volume and pitch of the note are determined by the brightness of the star.
Image credit: X-ray: Chandra: NASA/CXC/U.Wisc-Madison/S. Heinz et al.; Swift: NASA/Swift/Univ. of Leicester/A. Beardmore; Optical: DSS; Sonification: NASA/CXC/SAO/K.Arcand, SYSTEM Sounds (M. Russo, A. Santaguida)
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This 2003 composite X-ray (blue and green) and optical (red) image of the active galaxy, NGC 1068, shows gas blowing away in a high-speed wind from the vicinity of a central supermassive black hole. Regions of intense star formation in the inner spiral arms of the galaxy are highlighted by both optical and X-ray emission.
The elongated shape of the gas cloud is thought to be due to the funneling effect of a torus, or doughnut-shaped cloud, of cool gas and dust that surrounds the black hole. The torus, which appears as the elongated white spot in the accompanying 3-color X-ray images, has a mass of about 5 million Suns. Radio observations indicate that the torus extends from within a few light years of the black hole out to about 300 light years.
The X-rays observed from the torus are scattered and reflected X-rays that are probably coming from a hidden disk of hot gas formed as matter swirls very near the black hole. The torus is one source of the gas in the high-speed wind, but the hidden disk may also be involved. X-ray heating of gas further out in the galaxy contributes to the slower, outer parts of the wind.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/MIT/UCSB/P.Ogle et al.; Optical: NASA/STScI/A.Capetti et al.
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This 2008 image of M84, a massive elliptical galaxy in the Virgo Cluster, about 55 million light years from Earth, shows X-ray data from the Chandra X-ray Observatory. A number of bubbles generated from the supermassive black hole at the center of this giant galaxy are visible in this image. The particles that create these bubbles travel outward from the black hole in the form of a two-sided jet. Smaller bubbles are found within larger ones, and this nesting provides clear evidence for repeated outbursts from the central black hole.
Image credit: NASA/CXC/MPE/A.Finoguenov et al.
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On February 24, 1987, observers in the southern hemisphere saw a new object in a nearby galaxy called the Large Magellanic Cloud. This was one of the brightest supernova explosions in centuries and soon became known as Supernova 1987A (SN 87A). The Chandra data (blue) show the location of the supernova's shock wave — similar to the sonic boom from a supersonic plane — interacting with the surrounding material about four light years from the original explosion point. Optical data from Hubble (orange and red) also shows evidence for this interaction in the ring.
Image credit: NASA/CXC; Optical: NASA/STScI
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A new study shows a deep connection between some of the largest, most energetic events in the Universe and much smaller, weaker ones powered by our own Sun.
The results come from a long observation with NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory of Abell 2146, a pair of colliding galaxy clusters located about 2.8 billion light years from Earth. The new study was led by Helen Russell of the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom.
Galaxy clusters contain hundreds of galaxies and huge amounts of hot gas and dark matter and are among the largest structures in the Universe. Collisions between galaxy clusters release enormous amounts of energy unlike anything witnessed since the big bang and provide scientists with physics laboratories that are unavailable here on Earth.
In this composite image of Abell 2146, Chandra X-ray data (purple) shows hot gas, and Subaru Telescope optical data shows galaxies (red and white). One cluster is moving towards the bottom left and plowing through the other cluster. The hot gas in the former is pushing out a shock wave, like a sonic boom generated by a supersonic jet, as it collides with the hot gas in the other cluster.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Univ. of Nottingham/H. Russell et al.; Optical: NAOJ/Subaru
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This beautiful image shows a glowing horseshoe-shaped cloud of hot gas against a backdrop of thousands of stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a nearby galaxy. Observations with Chandra (X-ray/blue) and Hubble (optical/pink & purple) were used to make this composite image of N132D, a supernova remnant that was produced by the explosion of a massive star.
The explosion sent shock waves rumbling through interstellar space at speeds of several million miles per hour. These shock waves, analogous to the sonic boom produced by supersonic motion of an airplane, produce sudden, large changes in pressure, and temperature behind the waves.
The X-ray glow in this image is produced primarily by shock wave heating of interstellar gas to temperatures of about 10 million degrees Celsius. The horseshoe shape may have been caused by the uneven distribution of interstellar gas around the site of the explosion.
Deep within the remnant, the Hubble optical image reveals a smaller, bright crescent-shaped cloud of emission from hydrogen gas, and faint purple wisps that correspond to regions rich in oxygen atoms. These wisps provide evidence of the manufacture of oxygen and other elements such as carbon by nuclear reactions in the core of the pre-supernova star. These and other heavy elements are dispersed by the explosion and millions of years later could be incorporated into new generations of stars and their accompanying planets.
The star that exploded as a supernova to produce N132D was probably more than 20 times as massive as the Sun. Most of the stars in this image are less massive and will not go out with a bang. By comparison with N132D, they will go quietly into the night as they eventually fade away to become white dwarf stars.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/SAO/CXC; Optical: NASA, ESA, Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
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This 2008 composite of data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and Hubble Space Telescope gives astronomers a new look for NGC 6543, better known as the Cat's Eye nebula. This planetary nebula represents a phase of stellar evolution that our sun may well experience several billion years from now.
When a star like the sun begins to run out of fuel, it becomes a red giant. In this phase, a star sheds some of its outer layers, eventually leaving behind a hot core that collapses to form a dense white dwarf star. A fast wind emanating from the hot core rams into the ejected atmosphere, pushes it outward, and creates the graceful filamentary structures seen with optical telescopes.
In the case of the Cat's Eye, material shed by the star is flying away at a speed of about 4 million miles per hour. The star itself is expected to collapse to become a white dwarf star in a few million years.
This year, NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory celebrates its 20th year in space exploring the extreme universe.
Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: NASA/STScI
This 2010 Chandra image shows the central region of the M82 galaxy and contains two bright X-ray sources of special interest. 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.
Image credit: NASA/CXC/Tsinghua Univ./H. Feng et al.
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This 2009 X-ray image of the Hydra A galaxy cluster shows 10-million-degree gas observed by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. Detailed analysis of the Chandra data shows that the gas located along the direction of the jets is enhanced in iron and other metals produced by Type Ia supernova explosions in the large galaxy at the center of the cluster. A powerful outburst from the supermassive black hole then pushed the material outwards, over distances extending for almost 400,000 light years, extending beyond the region shown in this image.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/U.Waterloo/C.Kirkpatrick et al.
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Space is mostly quiet. Data collected by telescopes is most often turned into silent charts, plots, and images. A “sonification” project led by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and NASA’s Universe of Learning program transforms otherwise inaudible data from some of the world’s most powerful telescopes into sound. This effort makes it possible to experience data from cosmic sources with a different sense: hearing.
Westerlund 2 is a cluster of young stars – about one to two million years old – located about 20,000 light-years from Earth. In its visual image form, data from Hubble (green and blue) reveals thick clouds where stars are forming, while X-rays seen from Chandra (purple) penetrate through that haze. In the sonified version of this data, sounds sweep from left to right across the field of view with brighter light producing louder sound. The pitch of the notes indicates the vertical position of the sources in the image with the higher pitches towards the top of the image. The Hubble data is played by strings, either plucked for individual stars or bowed for diffuse clouds. Chandra’s X-ray data is represented by bells, and the more diffuse X-ray light is played by more sustained tones.
Image credit: NASA/CXC/U. Ohio/T.Statler & S.Diehl
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What will be the next star in our Milky Way galaxy to explode as a supernova? Astronomers aren't certain, but one candidate is in Eta Carinae, a volatile system containing two massive stars that closely orbit each other. This image has three types of light: optical data from Hubble (appearing as white), ultraviolet (cyan) from Hubble, and X-rays from Chandra (appearing as purple emission). The previous eruptions of this star have resulted in a ring of hot, X-ray emitting gas about 2.3 light years in diameter surrounding these two stars.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC; Ultraviolet/Optical: NASA/STScI; Combined Image: NASA/ESA/N. Smith (University of Arizona), J. Morse (BoldlyGo Institute) and A. Pagan
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This 2005 Chandra image reveals that the rings of Saturn sparkle in X-rays (blue dots in this X-ray/optical composite). The likely source for this radiation is the fluorescence caused by solar X-rays striking oxygen atoms in the water molecules that comprise most of the icy rings.
As the image shows, the X-rays in the ring mostly come from the B ring, which is about 25,000 kilometers wide and is about 40,000 kilometers (25,000 miles) above the surface of Saturn (the bright white inner ring in the optical image). There is some evidence for a concentration of X-rays on the morning side (left side, also called the East ansa) of the rings. One possible explanation for this concentration is that the X-rays are associated with optical features called spokes, which are largely confined to the dense B ring and most often seen on the morning side.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/MSFC/CXC/A.Bhardwaj et al.; Optical: NASA/ESA/STScI/AURA
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On Earth, wind can transport particles of dust and debris across the planet, with sand from the Sahara ending up in the Caribbean or volcanic ash from Iceland being deposited in Greenland. Wind can also have a big impact on the ecology and environment of a galaxy, just like on Earth, but on much larger and more dramatic scales.
A new study using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory shows the effects of powerful winds (in pink and white) launched from the center of a nearby galaxy, NGC 253, located 11.4 million light-years from Earth. This galactic wind is composed of gas with temperatures of millions of degrees that glows in X-rays. An amount of hot gas equivalent to about two million Earth masses blows away from the galaxy's center every year.
NGC 253 is a spiral galaxy, making it similar to our Milky Way. However, stars are forming in NGC 253 about two to three times more quickly than in our home galaxy. Some of these young stars are massive and generate a wind by ferociously blowing gas from their surfaces. Even more powerful winds are unleashed when, later in their relatively short lives, these stars explode as supernovae, and hurl waves of material out into space.
NGC 253 gives astronomers a keyhole through which to study this important phase in the stellar life cycle. The material that the young stars send out into intergalactic space across hundreds of light-years is enriched with elements forged in their interior. These elements, which include many responsible for life on Earth, are folded into the next generations of stars and planets.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/The Ohio State Univ/S. Lopez et al.; H-alpha and Optical: NSF/NOIRLab/AURA/KPNO/CTIO; Infrared: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Spitzer/D. Dale et al; Full Field Optical: ESO/La Silla Observatory.
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The Chandra X-ray Observatory image of this supernova remnant (also known as SNR 0505.7-6752) reveals an inner cloud of glowing iron and silicon (green and blue) surrounded by an outer blast wave (red). The outer blast wave, created during the destruction of the white dwarf star, is also seen in optical data from the Hubble Space Telescope (red and white).
This image is part of a collection of archiveed images made by “astronomy artist” Judy Schmidt, to help recognize #ArchivesMonth. All of the objects in this new archive collection are located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, or LMC, which is a small satellite galaxy to Milky Way.
This year, NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory celebrates its 20th year in space exploring the extreme universe.
Image credit: Enhanced Image by Judy Schmidt (CC BY-NC-SA) based on images provided courtesy of NASA/CXC/SAO & NASA/STScI
More about Chandra's 20th Anniversary
2005 Chandra observations revealed new details about the fiery ring surrounding the stellar explosion that produced Supernova 1987A. The data give insight into the behavior of the doomed star in the years before it exploded, and indicate that the predicted spectacular brightening of the circumstellar ring has begun.
Supernova 1987A occurred in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a galaxy only 160,000 light years from Earth. The outburst was visible to the naked eye, and is the brightest known supernova in almost 400 years. Optical hot-spots (pink-white) now encircle the ring like a necklace of incandescent diamonds. The Chandra data (blue-purple) reveals multimillion-degree gas at the location of the optical hot-spots.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/PSU/S.Park & D.Burrows.; Optical: NASA/STScI/CfA/P.Challis
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These two images contain some of the thousands of stars from a new survey by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, as reported in our latest press release. This was the largest survey of star formation ever conducted in X-rays, covering some 24,000 individual stars in 40 different regions. The study outlines the link between very powerful flares, or outbursts, from young stars and the impact they could have on planets in orbit around them.
Within this large dataset, scientists identified over a thousand young stars that gave off flares that are vastly more energetic than the most powerful flare ever observed by modern astronomers on the Sun, the "Solar Carrington Event" in 1859. "Super" flares are at least one hundred thousand times more energetic than the Carrington Event and "mega" flares up to 10 million times more energetic.
The Lagoon Nebula (left) is an area about 4,400 light years from Earth in the Milky Way galaxy where stars are actively forming. This field-of-view shows the southern portion of a large bubble of hydrogen gas, plus a cluster of young stars. The Chandra data (purple) have been combined with infrared data (blue, gold, and white) from the Spitzer Space Telescope in this composite image.
A sequence of X-ray images from Chandra show a young star (called "Lagoon 180402.88-242140.0") in the Lagoon Nebula that experienced a "mega-flare". This flare was about 250,000 more energetic than the most powerful flare observed by modern astronomers on the Sun, and lasted for about three and a half hours. It was followed by a smaller flare. The total duration of the movie covers almost 23 hours and 27 images are included. This star is only about 1.5 million years old — compared to the Sun's age of 4.5 billion years — and has a mass about three times that of the Sun. (Note: The apparent changes in the shape of the X-ray source are caused by noise rather than a true change in shape.)
The image on the right shows the star-forming region called RCW 120, which is also in the Milky Way, but slightly farther away at a distance of about 5,500 light years. This view of RCW 120, which has the same wavelengths and colors as the Lagoon composite, contains an expanding bubble of hydrogen gas, about 13 light years across. This structure may be sweeping up material into a dense shell and triggering the formation of stars.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Penn State/K. Getman, et al; Infrared: NASA/JPL/Spitzer
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This 2004 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*".
Image credit: NASA/CXC/UCLA/MIT/M.Muno et al.
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A galaxy about 23 million light years away is the site of impressive, ongoing fireworks. Rather than paper, powder and fire, this galactic light show involves a giant black hole, shock waves and vast reservoirs of gas.
This galactic fireworks display is taking place in NGC 4258, also known as M106, a spiral galaxy like our own Milky Way. This galaxy is famous, however, for something that our galaxy doesn’t have – two extra spiral arms that glow in X-ray, optical and radio light. These features, or anomalous arms, are not aligned with the plane of the galaxy, but instead intersect with it.
The anomalous arms are seen in this new composite image, where X-rays from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory are blue, radio data from the NSF's Karl Jansky Very Large Array are purple, optical data from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope are yellow and infrared data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope are red.
A new study made with Spitzer shows that shock waves, similar to the sonic booms from supersonic planes, are heating large amounts of gas – equivalent to about 10 million suns. What is generating these shock waves? Researchers think that the supermassive black hole at the center of NGC 4258 is producing powerful jets of high-energy particles. These jets strike the disk of the galaxy and generate shock waves. These shock waves, in turn, heat the gas – composed mainly of hydrogen molecules – to thousands of degrees.
The Chandra X-ray image reveals huge bubbles of hot gas above and below the plane of the galaxy. These bubbles indicate that much of the gas that was originally in the disk of the galaxy has been heated and ejected into the outer regions by the jets from the black hole.
Image credit: X-ray: Chandra: NASA/CXC/SAO/E. O'Sullivan; XMM: ESA/XMM/E. O'Sullivan; Optical: SDSS
More about Chandra's 20th Anniversary
This region of star formation features a giant bubble that is blowing out from the middle of this image due to winds flowing off young stars. Chandra X-ray Observatory data (purple and pink) show this superbubble of hot gas, while Hubble Space Telescope data (orange and light blue) reveals the gas and dust in the system. This image is part of a collection of archiveed images made by “astronomy artist” Judy Schmidt, to help recognize #ArchivesMonth. All of the objects in this new archive collection are located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, or LMC, which is a small satellite galaxy to Milky Way.
This year, NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory celebrates its 20th year in space exploring the extreme universe.
Image credit: Enhanced Image by Judy Schmidt (CC BY-NC-SA) based on images provided courtesy of NASA/CXC/SAO & NASA/STScI.
More about Chandra's 20th Anniversary
As reported in a single Chinese record, the supernova of 185 AD was visible for at least 8 months and reached a brightness comparable to Mars. In 2007, optical, radio, and X-ray emission observed at a location consistent with the Chinese record make RCW 86 the prime candidate for the remnant of SN 185 AD. Combined images from the Chandra (upper left and lower right boxes) and XMM-Newton X-ray observatories show low, medium and high-energy X-rays in red, green, and blue respectively. By studying the distribution of X-rays with energy, and measuring the remnant's size, scientists now surmise that RCW 86 was created by the explosion of a massive star roughly 2,000 years ago.
Image credit: Chandra: NASA/CXC/Univ. of Utrecht/J.Vink et al.; XMM-Newton: ESA/Univ. of Utrecht/J.Vink et al.
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