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NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory has captured many spectacular images of cosmic phenomena over its two decades of operations, but perhaps its most iconic is the supernova remnant Cassiopeia A.
Located about 11,000 light-years from Earth, Cas A (as it’s nicknamed) is the glowing debris field left behind after a massive star exploded. When the star ran out of fuel, it collapsed onto itself and blew up as a supernova, possibly briefly becoming one of the brightest objects in the sky. (Although astronomers think that this happened around the year 1680, there are no verifiable historical records to confirm this.)
The shock waves generated by this blast supercharged the stellar wreckage and its environment, making the debris glow brightly in many types of light, particularly X-rays. Shortly after Chandra was launched aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia on July 23, 1999, astronomers directed the observatory to point toward Cas A. It was featured in Chandra's official “First Light” image, released Aug. 26, 1999, and marked a seminal moment not just for the observatory, but for the field of X-ray astronomy. Near the center of the intricate pattern of the expanding debris from the shattered star, the image revealed, for the first time, a dense object called a neutron star that the supernova left behind.
Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/RIKEN/T. Sato et al.; Optical: NASA/STScI
This 2005 Chandra image shows two vast cavities - each 600,000 light years in diameter - in the hot, X-ray emitting gas that pervades the galaxy cluster MS 0735.6+7421 (MS 0735 for short). Although the cavities contain very little hot gas, they are filled with a two-sided, elongated, magnetized bubble of extremely high-energy electrons that emit radio waves.
The cavities appear on opposite sides of a large galaxy at the center of the cluster, which indicates that a gigantic eruption produced by the galaxy's supermassive black hole created the structures. The magnitude of the eruption suggests that as a large amount of gas swirled rapidly toward the central black hole, it generated intense electromagnetic fields that ejected a fraction of the gas in the form of powerful jets of high-energy particles.
As these jets blasted through the galaxy into the surrounding multimillion degree intergalactic gas, they pushed the hot gas aside to create the cavities. The mass of the displaced gas equals about a trillion Suns, more than the mass of all the stars in the Milky Way.
Chandra has discovered evidence of similar outbursts in the form of other X-ray cavities in galaxy clusters, but the cavities in MS 0735 are easily the largest and most powerful. To create such an enormous eruption, the supermassive black hole must have swallowed about 300 million solar masses of gas over the last hundred million years.
Image credit: NASA/CXC/Ohio U./B.McNamara
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Happy #StarWarsDay! A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, a giant black hole at the center of a massive elliptical galaxy made a mark on its surroundings! An “H”-shaped structure is found in a detailed new X-ray map from Chandra X-ray Observatory of the multimillion-degree gas around the galaxy Messier 84 (M84).
As gas is captured by the gravitational force of the black hole, some of it will fall into the abyss, never to be seen again. Some of the gas, however, avoids this fate and instead gets blasted away from the black hole in the form of jets of particles. These jets can push out cavities, in the hot gas surrounding the black hole. Given the orientation of the jets to Earth and the profile of the hot gas, the cavities in M84 form what appears to resemble the letter “H.” The H-shaped structure in the gas is an example of pareidolia, which is when people see familiar shapes or patterns in random data. Pareidolia can occur in all kinds of data from clouds to rocks and astronomical images.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Princeton Univ/C. Bambic et al.; Optical: SDSS; Radio: NSF/NRAO/VLA/ESO; Image processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/N.Wolk
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In the summer of 2022, NASA's James Webb Space Telescope released images from some of its earliest observations with the newly commissioned telescope. Almost instantaneously, these stunning images landed everywhere from the front pages of news outlets to larger-than-life displays in Times Square.
Webb, however, will not pursue its exploration of the universe on its own. It is designed to work in concert with NASA's many other telescopes as well as facilities both in space and on the ground. These new versions of Webb’s first images combine its infrared data with X-rays collected by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, underscoring how the power of any of these telescopes is only enhanced when joined with others.
The Cartwheel galaxy gets its shape from a collision with another smaller galaxy — located outside the field of this image — about 100 million years ago. When this smaller galaxy punched through the Cartwheel, it triggered star formation that appears around an outer ring and elsewhere throughout the galaxy. X-rays seen by Chandra (blue and purple) come from superheated gas, individual exploded stars, and neutron stars and black holes pulling material from companion stars. Webb’s infrared view (red, orange, yellow, green, blue) shows the Cartwheel galaxy plus two smaller companion galaxies — not part of the collision — against a backdrop of many more distant galactic cousins.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; IR (Spitzer): NASA/JPL-Caltech; IR (Webb): NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI
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A spectacular set of rings around a black hole has been captured using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory. The X-ray images of the giant rings have revealed new information about dust located in our Galaxy, using a similar principle to the X-rays performed in doctor's offices and airports.
The black hole is part of a binary system called V404 Cygni, located about 7,800 light-years away from Earth. The black hole is actively pulling material away from a companion star — with about half the mass of the Sun — into a disk around the invisible object. This material glows in X-rays, so astronomers refer to these systems as "X-ray binaries."
On June 5 2015, Swift discovered a burst of X-rays from V404 Cygni. The burst created the high-energy rings from a phenomenon known as light echoes. Instead of sound waves bouncing off a canyon wall, the light echoes around V404 Cygni were produced when a burst of X-rays from the black hole system bounced off of dust clouds between V404 Cygni and Earth. Cosmic dust is not like household dust but is more like smoke, and consists of tiny, solid particles.
In a new composite image, X-rays from Chandra (light blue) have been combined with optical data from the Pan-STARRS telescope on Hawaii that show the stars in the field of view. The image contains eight separate concentric rings. Each ring is created by X-rays from V404 Cygni flares observed in 2015 that reflect off different dust clouds. (An artist's illustration explains how the rings seen by Chandra and Swift were produced. To simplify the graphic, the illustration shows only four rings instead of eight.)
The team analyzed 50 Swift observations made in 2015 between June 30 and August 25. Chandra observed the system on July 11 and 25. It was such a bright event that the operators of Chandra purposely placed V404 Cygni in between the detectors so that another bright burst would not damage the instrument.
The rings tell astronomers not only about the black hole's behavior, but also about the landscape between V404 Cygni and Earth. For example, the diameter of the rings in X-rays reveals the distances to the intervening dust clouds the light ricocheted off. If the cloud is closer to Earth, the ring appears to be larger and vice versa. The light echoes appear as narrow rings rather than wide rings or haloes because the X-ray burst lasted only a relatively short period of time.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/U.Wisc-Madison/S. Heinz et al.; Optical/IR: Pan-STARRS
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The discovery of the most distant galaxy cluster with a specific important trait – as described in our press release – is providing insight into how these gigantic structures formed and why the universe looks like it does in the present day.
This composite image shows SPT-CL J2215-3537 (SPT2215 for short) in X-rays from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory (blue) and a combination of ultraviolet, optical, and infrared light from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope (cyan and orange). Astronomers used Chandra to find this distant and unusually young galaxy cluster, along with NSF/DOE’s South Pole Telescope, the Dark Energy Survey project in Chile and NASA’s Spitzer Observatory. The results have been reported in a series of three papers.
SPT2215 is located about 8.4 billion light-years from Earth. This means it is seen when the universe is only 5.3 billion years old, compared to its current age of 13.8 billion years. While there have been many clusters seen at this large distance, SPT2215 possesses a quality that makes its whereabouts particularly intriguing. SPT is what astronomers refer to as “relaxed,” meaning that it shows no signs of having been disrupted by violent collisions with other clusters of galaxies.
Galaxy clusters – some of the biggest structures in the universe -- grow over time by merging with other galaxy clusters or groups, causing disturbances such as asymmetries or sharp features in the cluster’s gas. Given enough time to “relax,” however, the gas can take on a smooth, calm appearance, as seen with SPT2215. Until the identification of SPT2215, astronomers had not found a relaxed galaxy cluster this far away. In fact, scientists were not sure they would find a galaxy cluster that was relaxed at this epoch of the universe, because they are usually still undergoing the turmoil of mergers with other clusters or groups of galaxies as they increase in size.
Another interesting aspect of SPT2215 is the evidence for large amounts of star formation happening in its center. SPT2215 has a very large galaxy in its middle, which in turn has a supermassive black hole at its core. The prodigious amount of star formation shows scientists that much of the hot has cooled to the point where new stars can form, without outbursts driven by the black hole providing a heating source that prevents most of this cooling. This addresses an ongoing question of how much black holes stymie or support the birth of stars in their environments.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/MIT/M. Calzadilla; UV/Optical/Near-IR/IR: NASA/STScI/HST; Image processing: N. Wolk
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Threads of superheated gas and magnetic fields are weaving a tapestry of energy at the center of the Milky Way galaxy. A new image of this new cosmic masterpiece was made using a giant mosaic of data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and the MeerKAT radio telescope in South Africa.
The new panorama of the Galactic Center builds on previous surveys from Chandra and other telescopes. This latest version expands Chandra's high-energy view farther above and below the plane of the Galaxy — that is, the disk where most of the Galaxy's stars reside — than previous imaging campaigns. In the image featured in our main graphic, X-rays from Chandra are orange, green, blue and purple, showing different X-ray energies, and the radio data from MeerKAT are shown in lilac and gray. The main features in the image are shown in a labeled version.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/UMass/Q.D. Wang; Radio: NRF/SARAO/MeerKAT)
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This 2009 composite image of the Tycho supernova remnant combines X-ray and infrared observations obtained with NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and Spitzer Space Telescope, respectively, and the Calar Alto observatory, Spain. It shows the scene more than four centuries after the brilliant star explosion witnessed by Tycho Brahe and other astronomers of that era.
The explosion has left a blazing hot cloud of expanding debris (green and yellow) visible in X-rays. The location of ultra-energetic electrons in the blast's outer shock wave can also be seen in X-rays (the circular blue line). Newly synthesized dust in the ejected material and heated pre-existing dust from the area around the supernova radiate at infrared wavelengths of 24 microns (red). Foreground and background stars in the image are white.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO, Infrared: NASA/JPL-Caltech; Optical: MPIA, Calar Alto, O.Krause et al.
Our Milky Way's central black hole has a leak. This supermassive black hole looks like it still has the vestiges of a blowtorch-like jet dating back several thousand years. NASA's Hubble Space Telescope hasn't photographed the phantom jet but has helped find circumstantial evidence that it is still pushing feebly into a huge hydrogen cloud and then splattering, like the narrow stream from a hose aimed into a pile of sand.
This is further evidence that the black hole, with a mass of 4.1 million Suns, is not a sleeping monster but periodically hiccups as stars and gas clouds fall into it. Black holes draw some material into a swirling, orbiting accretion disk where some of the infalling material is swept up into outflowing jets that are collimated by the black hole's powerful magnetic fields. The narrow "searchlight beams" are accompanied by a flood of deadly ionizing radiation.
In this annotated composite image, yellow represents Hubble data, blue is Chandra X-ray Observatory data, green is Alma Observatory data, and red is VLA data. The graphic of a translucent, vertical white fan is added to show the suggested axis of a mini-jet from the supermassive black hole at the galaxy’s heart.
Image credit: NASA, ESA, and Gerald Cecil (UNC-Chapel Hill); Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)
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The Chandra data of NGC 281 show more than 300 individual X-ray sources, most of which are associated with the central star cluster. The edge-on aspect of NGC 281 allows scientists to study the effects of powerful X-rays on the gas in the region, the raw material for star formation.
Image credit: NASA/CXC/CfA/S.Wolk et al.
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When a massive star explodes like the one that produced G292.0+1.8, it creates a shell of hot gas that glows brightly in X-rays. Chandra is able to observe the stellar debris, revealing the dynamics of the explosion. With nearly six days of Chandra observing time devoted to studying G292.0+1.8, astronomers hope they can use this particular remnant to better understand the complicated details of such an explosion. This image shows the high-energy X-rays only (1.810-2.050 and 2.400-2.620 keV).
Image credit: NASA/CXC/Penn State/S.Park et al.
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In this 2008 image of Kes 75, 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.
Image credit: NASA/CXC/GSFC/F.P.Gavriil et al.
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This 2010 Chandra X-ray Observatory image shows a view of NGC 1068, one of the nearest and brightest galaxies containing a rapidly growing supermassive black hole. NGC 1068 is located about 50 million light years from Earth and contains a supermassive black hole about twice as massive as the one in the middle of the Milky Way Galaxy.
Image credit: NASA/CXC/MIT/C.Canizares, D.Evans et al.
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3C442A is a system with two merging galaxies in the center. X-ray data from Chandra show that a role reversal is taking place in the middle of 3C442A. Chandra detects hot gas that has been pushing aside the radio-bright gas. This is the opposite of what is typically found in these systems when jets from the supermassive black hole in the center create cavities in the hot gas surrounding the galaxy. Astronomers believe an impending merger with another galaxy has caused the unusual dynamics in this system.
Image credit: NASA/CXC/Univ. of Bristol/Worrall et al.
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The active galaxy NGC 1275 is a well-known radio source (Perseus A) and a strong emitter of X-rays due to the presence of a black hole in the center of the galaxy. The behemoth also lies at the center of the cluster of galaxies known as the Perseus Cluster. The Chandra data shows the supermassive black hole at the center of Perseus A, seen as a white point. This 2008 image is 350 thousand light years across at the distance of the Perseus cluster. The hot cluster gas is seen as diffuse emission, and two cavities in the cluster gas are visible on either side of the black hole.
Image credit: NASA/CXC/IoA/A.Fabian et al.
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Chandra's 2008 image of SN 1006 shows X-rays from multimillion degree gas (red/orange) and high-energy electrons (blue). In the year 1006 a "new star" appeared in the sky and in just a few days it became brighter than the planet Venus. We now know that the event heralded not the appearance of a new star, but the cataclysmic death of an old one. It was likely a white dwarf star that had been pulling matter off an orbiting companion star. When the white dwarf mass exceeded the stability limit (known as the Chandrasekhar limit), it exploded. Material ejected in the supernova produced tremendous shock waves that heated gas to millions of degrees and accelerated electrons to extremely high energies.
Image credit: NASA/CXC/Rutgers/G.Cassam-Chenai, J.Hughes et al.
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A young pulsar is blazing through the Milky Way at a speed of over a million miles per hour. This stellar speedster, witnessed by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, is one of the fastest objects of its kind ever seen. This result teaches astronomers more about how some of the bigger stars end their lives.
Pulsars are rapidly spinning neutron stars that are formed when some massive stars run out of fuel, collapse, and explode. This pulsar is racing through the remains of the supernova explosion that created it, called G292.0+1.8, located about 20,000 light-years from Earth.
To make this discovery, the researchers compared Chandra images of G292.0+1.8 taken in 2006 and 2016. From the change in position of the pulsar over the 10-year span, they calculated it is moving at least 1.4 million miles per hour from the center of the supernova remnant to the lower left. This speed is about 30% higher than a previous estimate of the pulsar’s speed that was based on an indirect method, by measuring how far the pulsar is from the center of the explosion.
The newly determined speed of the pulsar indicates that G292.0+1.8 and its pulsar may be significantly younger than astronomers previously thought. Xi and his team estimate that G292.0+1.8 would have exploded about 2,000 years ago as seen from Earth, rather than 3,000 years ago as previously calculated. Several civilizations around the globe were recording supernova explosions at that time, opening up the possibility that G292.0+1.8 was directly observed.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Xi et al.; Optical: Palomar DSS2
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This is the brightest supernova remnant in either the LMC or its galactic cousin, the Small Magellanic Cloud. N132D also stands out because it belongs to a rare class of supernova remnants that have relatively high levels of oxygen. Scientists think most of the oxygen we breathe came from explosions similar to this one. Here, Chandra X-ray Observatory data are shown in purple and green and Hubble Space Telescope data are shown in red.
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
The 2005 Chandra image in the inset shows X-rays from SN 1970G, a supernova that was observed to occur in the galaxy M101 35 years ago. The bright cloud in the box in the optical image is not related to the supernova, which is located immediately to the upper right (arrow) of the cloud.
Before a massive star explodes as a supernova, it loses gas in a stellar wind that can last tens to hundreds of thousands of years, and creates a circumstellar gas shell around the star. The explosion generates shock waves that rush through this gas and heat it to millions of degrees. The X-rays from SN 1970G are likely due to this process.
By studying the spectrum and intensity of the X-rays from a supernova in the years after the explosion, astronomers can deduce information about the behavior of the star before it exploded. The observations of SN 1970G indicate that the progenitor star created its circumstellar shell by losing about one sun's worth of gas over a period of about 25,000 years before the explosion.
Astronomers estimate that in another 20 to 60 years the shock waves will have traversed the shell and encountered the interstellar medium. At this time SN 1970G will make the transition to the supernova remnant phase of its evolution.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/GFSC/S.Immler & K.Kuntz; Optical: NOAO/AURA/NSF/G.Jacoby, B.Bohannan & M.Hanna
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A dramatic new Chandra image of the nearby galaxy Centaurus A provides one of the best views to date 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.
The image was made from an ultra-deep look at the galaxy Centaurus A, equivalent to more than seven days of continuous observations. Centaurus A is the nearest galaxy to Earth that contains a supermassive black hole actively powering a jet.
A prominent X-ray jet extending for 13,000 light years points to the upper left in the image, with a shorter "counterjet" aimed in the opposite direction. Astronomers think that such jets are important vehicles for transporting energy from the black hole to the much larger dimensions of a galaxy, and affecting the rate at which stars form there.
High-energy electrons spiraling around magnetic field lines produce the X-ray emission from the jet and counterjet. This emission quickly saps the energy from the electrons, so they must be continually reaccelerated or the X-rays will fade out. Knot-like features in the jets detected in the Chandra image show where the acceleration of particles to high energies is currently occurring, and provides important clues to understanding the process that accelerates the electrons to near-light speeds.
This year, NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory celebrates its 20th year in space exploring the extreme universe.
Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/CfA/R.Kraft et al Radio: NSF/VLA/Univ. of Hertfordshire/M.Hardcastle et al. Optical: ESO/VLT/ISAAC/M.Rejkuba et al.
This 2007 set of Chandra images shows evidence for a light echo generated by the Milky Way's supermassive black hole, a.k.a. Sagittarius A* (pronounced "A-star"). Astronomers believe a mass equivalent to the planet Mercury was devoured by the black hole about 50 years earlier, causing an X-ray outburst which then reflected off gas clouds near Sagittarius A*.
The large image shows a Chandra view of the middle of the Milky Way, with Sagittarius A* labeled. The smaller images show close-ups of the region marked with ellipses. Clear changes in the shapes and brightness of the gas clouds are seen between the 3 different observations in 2002, 2004 and 2005. This behavior agrees with theoretical predictions for a light echo produced by Sagittarius A* and helps rule out other interpretations.
While the primary X-rays from the outburst would have reached Earth about 50 years ago, before X-ray observatories were in place to see it, the reflected X-rays took a longer path and arrived in time to be recorded by Chandra.
The clouds of gas featured in the image are glowing by a process called fluorescence. Iron in these clouds has been bombarded either by X-rays from a source that had an outburst in the past or by very energetic electrons. The electrons or photons hit the iron atoms, knocking out electrons close to the nucleus, causing electrons further out to fill the hole, emitting X-rays in the process.
The detection of variability in these fluorescing gas clouds rules out the possibility that they were bombarded by energetic electrons. It also helps rule out other explanations for the X-ray emission, including the possibility that the gas clouds are the remnants of exploded stars or that the light echo came not from Sagittarius A* but from a neutron star or black hole pulling matter away from a binary companion.
Studying this light echo gives a crucial history of activity from Sagittarius A*, and it also illuminates and probes the poorly understood gas clouds near the center of the galaxy.
Image credit: NASA/CXC/Caltech/M.Muno et al.
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NASA's three Great Observatories -- the Hubble Space Telescope, the Spitzer Space Telescope, and the Chandra X-ray Observatory -- joined forces in 2004 to probe the expanding remains of a supernova. Now known as Kepler's supernova remnant, this object was first seen 400 years ago by sky watchers, including famous astronomer Johannes Kepler.
The combined image unveils a bubble-shaped shroud of gas and dust that is 14 light years wide and is expanding at 4 million miles per hour (2,000 kilometers per second). Observations from each telescope highlight distinct features of the supernova remnant, a fast-moving shell of iron-rich material from the exploded star, surrounded by an expanding shock wave that is sweeping up interstellar gas and dust.
Each color in this image represents a different region of the electromagnetic spectrum, from X-rays to infrared light. These diverse colors are shown in the panel of photographs below the composite image. The X-ray and infrared data cannot be seen with the human eye. By color-coding those data and combining them with Hubble's visible-light view, astronomers are presenting a more complete picture of the supernova remnant.
Image credit: NASA/ESA/JHU/R.Sankrit & W.Blair
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A 2002 composite X-ray (blue), radio (pink and green), and optical (orange and yellow) image of the galaxy Centaurus A presents a stunning tableau of a galaxy in turmoil. A broad band of dust and cold gas is bisected at an angle by opposing jets of high-energy particles blasting away from the supermassive black hole in the nucleus. Two large arcs of X-ray emitting hot gas were discovered in the outskirts of the galaxy on a plane perpendicular to the jets.
The arcs of multimillion degree gas appear to be part of a projected ring 25,000 light years in diameter. The size and location of the ring indicate that it may have been produced in a titanic explosion that occurred about ten million years ago.
Such an explosion would have produced the high-energy jets, and a galaxy-sized shock wave moving outward at speeds of a million miles per hour. The age of 10 million years for the outburst is consistent with optical and infrared observations that indicate that the rate of star formation in the galaxy increased dramatically at about that time.
Scientists have suggested that all this activity may have begun with the merger of a small spiral galaxy and Centaurus A about 100 million years ago. Such a merger could eventually trigger both the burst of star formation and the violent activity in the nucleus of the galaxy. The tremendous energy released when a galaxy becomes "active" can have a profound influence on the subsequent evolution of the galaxy and its neighbors. The mass of the central black hole can increase, the gas reservoir for the next generation of stars can be expelled, and the space between the galaxies can be enriched with heavier elements.
Image credit: X-ray (NASA/CXC/M. Karovska et al.); Radio 21-cm image (NRAO/VLA/J.Van Gorkom/Schminovich et al.), Radio continuum image (NRAO/VLA/J. Condon et al.); Optical (Digitized Sky Survey U.K. Schmidt Image/STScI)
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Astronomers are winding back the clock on the expanding remains of a nearby, exploded star. By using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, they retraced the speedy shrapnel from the blast to calculate a more accurate estimate of the location and time of the stellar detonation.
The victim is a star that exploded long ago in the Small Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy to our Milky Way. The doomed star left behind an expanding, gaseous corpse, a supernova remnant named 1E 0102.2-7219, which NASA's Einstein Observatory first discovered in X-rays. Like detectives, researchers sifted through archival images taken by Hubble, analyzing visible-light observations made 10 years apart.
This Hubble Space Telescope portrait reveals the gaseous remains of an exploded massive star that erupted approximately 1,700 years ago. The stellar corpse, a supernova remnant named 1E 0102.2-7219, met its demise in the Small Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of our Milky Way.
Image credit: NASA, ESA, and J. Banovetz and D. Milisavljevic (Purdue University)
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Astronomers have discovered evidence for an extraordinarily long jet of particles coming from a supermassive black hole in the early universe, using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory.
If confirmed, it would be the most distant supermassive black hole with a jet detected in X-rays. Coming from a galaxy about 12.7 billion light-years from Earth, the jet may help explain how the biggest black holes formed at a very early time in the universe’s history.
The source of the jet is a quasar – a rapidly growing supermassive black hole – named PSO J352.4034-15.3373 (PJ352-15 for short), which sits at the center of a young galaxy. It is one of the two most powerful quasars detected in radio waves in the first billion years after the big bang, and is about a billion times more massive than the Sun.
How were supermassive black holes able to grow so quickly to reach such an enormous mass in this early epoch of the universe? This is one of the key questions in astronomy today.
Despite their powerful gravity and fearsome reputation, black holes do not inevitably pull in everything that approaches close to them. Material orbiting around a black hole in a disk needs to lose speed and energy before it can fall farther inwards to cross the so-called event horizon, the point of no return. Magnetic fields can cause a braking effect on the disk as they power a jet, which is one key way for material in the disk to lose energy and, therefore, enhance the rate of growth of black holes.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXO/JPL/T. Connor; Optical: Gemini/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA; Infrared: W.M. Keck Observatory; Illustration: NASA/CXC/M.Weiss
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For the first time, astronomers have found two giant clusters of galaxies that are just about to collide, as reported in a new press release by RIKEN. This observation is important in understanding the formation of structure in the Universe, since large-scale structures—such as galaxies and clusters of galaxies—are thought to grow by collisions and mergers.
The composite image shows the separate galaxy clusters 1E2215 and 1E2216, located about 1.2 billion light years from Earth, captured as they enter a critical phase of merging. Chandra’s X-ray data (blue) have been combined with a radio image from the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope in India (red). These images were then overlaid on an optical image from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey that shows galaxies and stars in the field of view.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/RIKEN/L. Gu et al; Radio: NCRA/TIFR/GMRT; Optical: SDSS
Messier 82, or M82, is a galaxy that is oriented edge-on to Earth. Thisgives astronomers and their telescopes an interesting view of whathappens as this galaxy undergoes bursts of star formation. X-rays fromChandra (appearing as blue and pink) show gas in outflows about 20,000 light years long that has been heated to temperatures above ten million degrees by repeated supernova explosions. Optical light data from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope (red and orange) shows the galaxy.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC; Optical: NASA/STScI
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The 2003 Chandra Deep Field North image (left) was made by observing an area of the sky three-fifths the size of the full moon for 23 days. It is the most sensitive or "deepest" X-ray exposure ever made. The faintest sources produced only one X-ray photon every 4 days.
More than 500 X-ray sources are present in this high-energy core sample of the early universe. Most of the sources are supermassive black holes located in the centers of galaxies. If the number of supermassive black holes seen in this patch of the sky is typical, the total number detectable over the whole sky at this level of sensitivity would be 300 million.
The Great Observatory Origins Deep Survey (GOODS) aimed to unite extremely deep observations from NASA's Great Observatories, Hubble, Chandra, and Spitzer with data from XMM-Newton and some of the most powerful ground-based facilities.
Image credit: NASA/CXC/PSU/D.M.Alexander, F.E.Bauer, W.N.Brandt et al.
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This galaxy cluster, Abell 2163, from the Chandra X-ray Observatory is representative of over 80 clusters that were used to track the effects of dark energy on these massive objects over time. Most of the matter in galaxy clusters is in the form of very hot gas, which emits copious amounts of X-rays. By studying clusters across large distances, astronomers have determined that dark energy has stifled their growth.
Image credit: NASA/CXC/SAO/A.Vikhlinin et al.
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This 2005 composite X-ray (red)/optical (blue & white) image of the spiral galaxy M74 highlights an ultraluminous X-ray source (ULX) shown in the box. ULX sources are distinctive because they radiate 10 to 1000 times more X-ray power than neutron stars and stellar mass black holes. Chandra observations of this ULX have provided evidence that its X-radiation is produced by a disk of hot gas swirling around a black hole with a mass of about 10,000 Suns.
The ULX exhibits strong, nearly periodic variations in its X-ray brightness every two hours. These variations are likely produced by changes in the hot gas disk around the black hole. The size of the disk is related to the mass of the black hole, so more massive black holes are expected to vary over longer periods.
The observed two-hour variation suggests that this black hole has a mass of about 10,000 Suns, which would indicate that it belongs to a possible new class of black holes - intermediate mass black holes. These black holes have masses well above known stellar-mass black holes of about 10 solar masses, and well below the multimillion solar mass black holes in the centers of galaxies.
How could intermediate mass black holes form? The leading theories under consideration are that they form as dozens or even hundreds of stellar-mass black holes merge in the center of a dense star cluster, or that they are the remnant nuclei of small galaxies that are in the process of being absorbed by a larger galaxy.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/U. of Michigan/J.Liu et al.; Optical: NOAO/AURA/NSF/T.Boroson
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Astronomers taking inventory of the material in the local universe keep coming up short. A new result from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory about a system of colliding galaxy clusters may help explain this shortfall.
Although scientists know a great deal about the composition of the universe, there has been a vexing problem they have struggled to explain – there is a significant amount of matter that has not yet been accounted for.
This missing mass is not the invisible dark matter, which makes up a majority of the matter in the universe. This is a separate puzzle where about a third of the “normal” matter that was created in the first billion years or so after the big bang has yet to be detected by observations of the local universe, that is, in regions less than a few billion light-years from Earth. This matter is made up of hydrogen, helium, and other elements and makes up objects like stars, planets, and humans.
Scientists have proposed that at least some of this missing mass could be hidden in gigantic strands, or filaments, of warm to hot (temperatures of 10,000 to 10,000,000 kelvins) gas in the space in between galaxies and clusters of galaxies. They have dubbed this the “warm-hot intergalactic medium,” or WHIM.
A team of astronomers using Chandra to observe a system of colliding galaxy clusters has likely found evidence of this WHIM residing in the space between them.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/CfA/A. Sarkar; Optical: NSF/NOIRLab/WIYN
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Often, a spiderweb conjures the idea of captured prey soon to be consumed by a waiting predator. In the case of the "Spiderweb" protocluster, however, objects that lie within a giant cosmic web are feasting and growing, according to data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory.
The Spiderweb galaxy, officially known as J1140-2629, gets its nickname from its web-like appearance in some optical light images. This likeness can be seen in the inset box where data from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope shows galaxies in orange, white, and blue, and data from Chandra is in purple. Located about 10.6 billion light years from Earth, the Spiderweb galaxy is at the center of a protocluster, a growing collection of galaxies and gas that will eventually evolve into a galaxy cluster.
To look for growing black holes in the Spiderweb protocluster a team of researchers observed it for over eight days with Chandra. In the main panel of this graphic, a composite image of the Spiderweb protocluster shows X-rays detected by Chandra (also in purple) that have been combined with optical data from the Subaru telescope on Mauna Kea in Hawaii (red, green, and white).
Most of the "blobs" in the optical image are galaxies in the protocluster, including 14 that have been detected in the new, deep Chandra image. These X-ray sources reveal the presence of material falling towards supermassive black holes containing hundreds of millions of times more mass than the Sun. The Spiderweb protocluster exists at an epoch in the Universe that astronomers refer to as "cosmic noon". Scientists have found that during this time — about 3 billion years after the big bang — black holes and galaxies were undergoing extreme growth.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/INAF/P. Tozzi et al; Optical (Subaru): NAOJ/NINS; Optical (HST): NASA/STScI
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Evidence for an awesome upheaval in a massive galaxy cluster was discovered in a 2007 image made by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. The origin of a bright arc of extremely hot gas extending over two million light years requires one of the most energetic events ever detected. There are also hints of a cavity in the hot gas to the upper left.
Image credit: NASA/CXC/CfA/R.P.Kraft
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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.
Beginning in the center, the sonification of the Tycho supernova remnant expands outward in a circle. The image contains X-ray data from Chandra where the various colors represent small bands of frequency that are associated with different elements that are moving both toward and away from Earth. For example, red shows iron, green is silicon, and blue represents sulfur. The sonification aligns with those colors as the redder light produces the lowest notes and blue and violet create the higher-pitched notes. Color varies over the remnant, but the lowest and highest notes (red and blue) dominate near the center and are joined by other colors (mid-range notes) towards the edge of the remnant. White corresponds to the full range of frequencies of light observable by Chandra, which is strongest toward the edge of the remnant. This light is converted to sound in a more direct way as well, by interpreting frequencies of light as frequencies of sound and then shifting them lower by 50 octaves so that they fall within the human hearing range. The different proportions of iron, silicon, and sulfur across the remnant can be heard in the changing amounts of the low-, mid-, and high-frequency peaks in the sound. The field of stars in the image as observed by Hubble is played as notes on a harp with the pitch determined by their color.
Image credit: NASA/CXC/U. Ohio/T.Statler & S.Diehl
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Chandra's 2003 image of M83 shows numerous point-like neutron star and black hole X-ray sources scattered throughout the disk of this spiral galaxy. The bright nuclear region of the galaxy glows prominently due to a burst of star formation that is estimated to have begun about 20 million years ago in the galaxy's time frame.
The observation revealed that the nuclear region contains a much higher concentration of neutron stars and black holes than the rest of the galaxy. Also discovered was a cloud of 7 million-degree Celsius gas enveloping the nuclear region.
The picture that emerges is one of enhanced star formation in the nuclear region that has produced more massive stars, leading to more supernova explosions, neutron stars and black holes. This activity could also account for the hot gas cloud which shows evidence for an excess of carbon, neon, magnesium, silicon and sulfur atoms. Mass evaporating from massive stars, and the ejecta from supernovas have enriched the gas with carbon and other elements.
Hot gas with a slightly lower temperature of 4 million degrees was observed along the spiral arms of the galaxy. This suggests that star formation may be occurring at a more sedate rate in the spiral arms, consistent with the observation of proportionately fewer bright point-like sources there compared to the nucleus.
Image credit: NASA/CXC/U.Leicester/U.London/R.Soria & K.Wu
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This image features a galaxy called 3C 297 that is lonelier than expected after it likely pulled in and absorbed its former companion galaxies, as described in our latest press release. The solo galaxy is located about 9.2 billion light-years from Earth and contains a quasar, a supermassive black hole pulling in gas at the center of the galaxy and driving powerful jets of matter seen in radio waves. This result made with NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and the International Gemini Observatory may push the limits for how quickly astronomers expect galaxies to grow in the early universe.
In several regards, 3C 297 has the qualities of a galaxy cluster, a gigantic structure that contains hundreds or even thousands of individual galaxies. X-ray data from Chandra reveal large quantities of gas heated to millions of degrees — a signature feature of a galaxy cluster. Astronomers also found a jet from the quasar — seen by the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array — that has been bent by interacting with its surroundings. Finally, Chandra data shows evidence that the other quasar jet has smashed into the gas around it, creating a “hotspot” of X-rays. These are typically characteristics of a galaxy cluster. Yet, data from the Gemini Observatory show there is only one galaxy in 3C 297. The nineteen galaxies that appear close to 3C 297 in a Gemini image are actually at much different distances.
In this new composite image, Chandra data is colored purple, VLA data is red and Gemini data is green. Visible light and infrared data from the Hubble Space Telescope (blue and orange respectively) have also been included. The lonely galaxy (3C 297) and the position of its supermassive black are identified in a labeled version of the image, along with the black hole’s jets, the X-ray hotspot and the hot gas. The field of view of this image is too small to show any of the 19 galaxies that are not at the same distance as 3C 297.
X-ray: NASA/CXC/Univ. of Torino/V. Missaglia et al.; Optical: NASA/ESA/STScI & International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA; Infrared: NASA/ESA/STScI; Radio: NRAO/AUI/NSF
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A group of galaxies is plunging into the Coma galaxy cluster and leaving behind an enormous tail of superheated gas. Astronomers have confirmed this is the longest known tail behind a galaxy group and used it to gain a deeper understanding of how galaxy clusters – some of the largest structures in the universe – grow to their enormous sizes.
Astronomers trained NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory on the galaxy group NGC 4839. Galaxy groups are collections of about 50 galaxies or less that are bound together by gravity. Galaxy clusters are even larger and can contain hundreds or thousands of individual galaxies.
Both galaxy clusters and galaxy groups are enveloped by huge amounts of hot gas that are best studied using X-rays. These superheated pools of gas, though extremely thin and diffuse, represent a significant portion of the mass in galaxy groups or clusters and are crucial for understanding these systems.
NGC 4839 is located near the edge of the Coma galaxy cluster, one of the largest known clusters in the universe about 340 million light-years away. As NGC 4839 moves toward the center of the Coma cluster, the hot gas in the galaxy group is stripped away by its collision with gas in the cluster. This results in a tail forming behind the galaxy group.
The image on the left shows an X-ray view of the Coma galaxy cluster taken with ESA’s (European Space Agency’s) XMM-Newton (blue), along with optical data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (yellow). The galaxy group NGC 4839 is located in the lower right of that image. The inset on the right is the Chandra image (purple) of the region outlined by the square. The head of NGC 4839’s tail is on the left side of the Chandra image and contains the brightest galaxy in the group and the densest gas. The tail trails to the right. (The Chandra image has been rotated so that north is about 30 degrees to the left of vertical.)
X-rays from the hot gas in the outer regions of the Coma cluster — that NGC 4839 is traveling through — are too faint to be seen in the XMM image shown here, but are highlighted in a supplementary, XMM-only image. This mosaic of images shows gaps between individual images where data was not obtained, and dark holes where point sources of X-rays were removed.
This tail is, in fact, 1.5 million light-years long, or hundreds of thousands of times the distance between the Sun and the nearest star, making it the longest tail ever seen trailing behind a group of galaxies.
Image credit: X-ray: Chandra: NASA/SAO/Univ. of Alabama/M. S. Mirakhor et al.; XMM: ESA/XMM-Newton; Optical: SDSS; Image processing: N. Wolk
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A remarkable eclipse of a supermassive black hole and the hot gas disk around it was observed with NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory in 2007. This eclipse, which occurred in the galaxy NGC 1365, has allowed astronomers to test two key predictions about the effects of supermassive black holes.
Image credit: NASA/CXC/CfA/INAF/Risaliti
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This 2007 multi-wavelength image of Abell 520 shows the aftermath of a complicated collision of galaxy clusters, some of the most massive objects in the Universe. In this image, the hot gas as detected by Chandra is colored red. Optical data from the Canada-France-Hawaii and Subaru telescopes shows the starlight from the individual galaxies (yellow and orange). The location of most of the matter in the cluster (blue) was also found using these telescopes, by tracing the subtle light-bending effects on distant galaxies. This material is dominated by dark matter.
Abell 520 has similarities to the so-called Bullet Cluster (also known as 1E0657-56). As with the Bullet Cluster, it appears that the galaxies flew past one another when the clusters collided, as expected. Another parallel is that there are large separations between the regions where the galaxies are most common (see inset for labeled peaks 2 and 4) and where most of the hot gas lies (peak 3).
There are significant differences, however, between Abell 520 and the Bullet Cluster. For example, a concentration of dark matter is found (peak 3) near the bulk of the hot gas, where very few galaxies are found. In addition, there is an area (peak 5) where there are several galaxies but very little dark matter. Both of these features are in contrast to popular theory that says dark matter and galaxies should stay together, even during a violent collision.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/UVic./A.Mahdavi et al. Optical/Lensing: CFHT/UVic./A.Mahdavi et al.
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This 2005 image, made by combining 150 hours of archived Chandra data, shows the remnant of a supernova explosion. The central bright cloud of high-energy electrons is surrounded by a distinctive shell of hot gas.
The shell is due to a shock wave generated as the material ejected by the supernova plows into interstellar matter. The shock wave heats gas to millions of degrees, producing X-rays in the process.
Although many supernovas leave behind bright shells, others do not. This supernova remnant, identified as G21.5-0.9 by radio astronomers 30 years ago, was considered to be one that had no shell until it was revealed by Chandra.
Image credit: NASA/CXC/U.Manitoba/H.Matheson & S.Safi-Harb
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When stars are more massive than about 8 times the Sun, they end their lives in a spectacular explosion called a supernova. The outer layers of the star are hurtled out into space at millions of miles per hour, leaving a debris field of gas and dust. Where the star once was located, a small, incredibly dense object called a neutron star is often found. While only 10 miles or so across, the tightly packed neutrons in such a star contain more mass than the entire Sun.
This 2007 X-ray image shows the 2,000 year-old-remnant of such a cosmic explosion, known as RCW 103, which occurred about 10,000 light years from Earth. In Chandra's image, the colors of red, green, and blue are mapped to low, medium, and high-energy X-rays. At the center, the bright blue dot is likely the neutron star that astronomers believe formed when the star exploded. For several years astronomers have struggled to understand the behavior of the this object, which exhibits unusually large variations in its X-ray emission over a period of years. Evidence from Chandra implies that the neutron star near the center is rotating once every 6.7 hours, confirming recent work from XMM-Newton. This is much slower than a neutron star of its age should be spinning. One possible solution to this mystery is that the massive progenitor star to RCW 103 may not have exploded in isolation. Rather, a low-mass star that is too dim to see directly may be orbiting around the neutron star. Gas flowing from this unseen neighbor onto the neutron star might be powering its X-ray emission, and the interaction of the magnetic field of the two stars could have caused the neutron star to slow its rotation.
Image credit: NASA/CXC/Penn State/G.Garmire et al
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Astronomers may have found our galaxy’s first example of an unusual kind of stellar explosion. This discovery, made with NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, adds to the understanding of how some stars shatter and seed the universe with elements critical for life on Earth.
This intriguing object, located near the center of the Milky Way, is a supernova remnant called Sagittarius A East, or Sgr A East for short. Based on Chandra data, astronomers previously classified the object as the remains of a massive star that exploded as a supernova, one of many kinds of exploded stars that scientists have catalogued.
Using longer Chandra observations, a team of astronomers has now instead concluded that the object is left over from a different type of supernova. It is the explosion of a white dwarf, a shrunken stellar ember from a fuel-depleted star like our Sun. When a white dwarf pulls too much material from a companion star or merges with another white dwarf, the white dwarf is destroyed, accompanied by a stunning flash of light.
Astronomers use these “Type Ia supernovae” because most of them mete out almost the same amount of light every time no matter where they are located. This allows scientists to use them to accurately measure distances across space and study the expansion of the universe.
Data from Chandra have revealed that Sgr A East, however, did not come from an ordinary Type Ia. Instead, it appears that it belongs to a special group of supernovae that produce different relative amounts of elements than traditional Type Ias do, and less powerful explosions. This subset is referred to as “Type Iax,” a potentially important member of the supernova family.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Nanjing Univ./P. Zhou et al. Radio: NSF/NRAO/VLA
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NGC 3576 is a giant HII region of glowing gas located about 9,000 light years from Earth. In the Chandra image of this star forming region, lower-energy X-rays (0.5-2.0 keV) are shown in red and higher-energy X-rays (2-8 keV) are in blue. Chandra reveals a cluster of point-like X-ray sources, some of which are massive young stars that are shredding the cloud of gas from which they formed. The blue sources are stars that are deeply embedded in gas. Regions of diffuse X-ray emission are likely caused by hot winds flowing away from the most massive stars. Some of the diffuse gas near the center of the image is also deeply embedded.
HII (pronounced "H-two") regions are where stars are born from condensing clouds of hydrogen gas (they are named for the large amounts of ionized atomic hydrogen they contain.) These regions are characterized by hot, young, massive stars which emit large amounts of ultraviolet light and ionize the nebula. Because NGC 3576 is very dense, many of the young, massive stars visible in the Chandra image have previously been hidden from view. A cluster of stars is visible in infrared observations, but not enough young, massive stars have been identified to explain the brightness of the nebula. Astronomers have found a large flow of ionized gas in radio observations and huge bubbles in optical images that extend out from the edge of the HII region. Taken with the X-ray data, this information hints that powerful winds are emerging from this hidden cluster.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Penn State/L.Townsley et al.; Optical: DSS; Infrared: MSX
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Eta Carinae is a mysterious, extremely bright and unstable star located a mere stone's throw - astronomically speaking - from Earth at a distance of only about 7,500 light years. The star is thought to be consuming its nuclear fuel at an incredible rate, while quickly drawing closer to its ultimate explosive demise. When Eta Carinae does explode, it will be a spectacular fireworks display seen from Earth, perhaps rivaling the moon in brilliance. Its fate has been foreshadowed by the recent discovery of SN2006gy, a supernova in a nearby galaxy that was the brightest stellar explosion ever seen. The erratic behavior of the star that later exploded as SN2006gy suggests that Eta Carinae may explode at any time.
Eta Carinae, a star between 100 and 150 times more massive than the Sun, is near a point of unstable equilibrium where the star's gravity is almost balanced by the outward pressure of the intense radiation generated in the nuclear furnace. This means that slight perturbations of the star might cause enormous ejections of matter from its surface. In the 1840s, Eta Carinae had a massive eruption by ejecting more than 10 times the mass of the sun, to briefly become the second brightest star in the sky. This explosion would have torn most other stars to pieces but somehow Eta Carinae survived.
This 2007 composite image shows the remnants of that titanic event with new data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Hubble Space Telescope. The blue regions show the cool optical emission, detected by Hubble, from the dust and gas thrown off the star. This debris forms a bipolar shell around the star, which lies near the brightest point of the optical emission. This bipolar shell is itself surrounded by a ragged cloud of fainter material. An unusual jet points from the star to the upper left.
Chandra's data, depicted in orange and yellow, shows the X-ray emission produced as material thrown off Eta Carinae rams into nearby gas and dust, heating gas to temperatures in excess of a million degrees.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/GSFC/M.Corcoran et al.; Optical: NASA/STScI
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Astronomers have used NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory to record material blasting away from the site of an exploded star at speeds faster than 20 million miles per hour. This is about 25,000 times faster than the speed of sound on Earth.
The Kepler supernova remnant is the debris from a detonated star that is located about 20,000 light years away from Earth in our Milky Way galaxy. In 1604 early astronomers, including Johannes Kepler who became the object's namesake, saw the supernova explosion that destroyed the star.
We now know that Kepler's supernova remnant is the aftermath of a so-called Type Ia supernova, where a small dense star, known as a white dwarf, exceeds a critical mass limit after interacting with a companion star and undergoes a thermonuclear explosion that shatters the white dwarf and launches its remains outward.
The latest study tracked the speed of 15 small "knots" of debris in the Kepler supernova remnant, all glowing in X-rays. The fastest knot was measured to have a speed of 23 million miles per hour, the highest speed ever detected of supernova remnant debris in X-rays. The average speed of the knots is about 10 million miles per hour, and the blast wave is expanding at about 15 million miles per hour. These results independently confirm the 2017 discovery of knots travelling at speeds more than 20 million miles per hour in the Kepler supernova remnant.
Image credit: NASA/CXC/Univ of Texas at Arlington/M. Millard et al.
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The mystery surrounding the whereabouts of a supermassive black hole has deepened.
Despite searching with NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have no evidence that a distant black hole estimated to weigh between 3 billion and 100 billion times the mass of the Sun is anywhere to be found.
This missing black hole should be in the enormous galaxy in the center of the galaxy cluster Abell 2261, which is located about 2.7 billion light years from Earth. This composite image of Abell 2261 contains optical data from Hubble and the Subaru Telescope showing galaxies in the cluster and in the background, and Chandra X-ray data showing hot gas (colored pink) pervading the cluster. The middle of the image shows the large elliptical galaxy in the center of the cluster.
Nearly every large galaxy in the Universe contains a supermassive black hole in their center, with a mass that is millions or billions of times that of the Sun. Since the mass of a central black hole usually tracks with the mass of the galaxy itself, astronomers expect the galaxy in the center of Abell 2261 to contain a supermassive black hole that rivals the heft of some of the largest known black holes in the Universe.
Using Chandra data obtained in 1999 and 2004 astronomers had already searched the center of Abell 2261's large central galaxy for signs of a supermassive black hole. They looked for material that has been superheated as it fell towards the black hole and produced X-rays, but did not detect such a source.
Now, with new, longer Chandra observations obtained in 2018, a team led by Kayhan Gultekin from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor conducted a deeper search for the black hole in the center of the galaxy. They also considered an alternative explanation, in which the black hole was ejected from the host galaxy's center. This violent event may have resulted from two galaxies merging to form the observed galaxy, accompanied by the central black hole in each galaxy merging to form one enormous black hole.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Univ of Michigan/K. Gültekin; Optical: NASA/STScI and NAOJ/Subaru; Infrared: NSF/NOAO/KPNO
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This 2009 Chandra X-ray image shows a divided neighborhood where some 200 hot, young, massive stars reside. Bubbles in the cooler gas and dust have been generated by powerful stellar winds, which are then filled with hot, X-ray emitting gas. Scientists find the amount of hot gas detected in the bubbles on the right side corresponds to the amount entirely powered by winds from the 200 hot massive stars. The situation is different on the left side where the amount of X-ray gas cannot explain the brightness of the X-ray emission. The bubbles on this left side appear to be much older and were likely created and powered by young stars and supernovas in the past.
Image credit: NASA/CXC/CfA/R. Tuellmann et al.
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In 1572, Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe was among those who noticed a new bright object in the constellation Cassiopeia. Adding fuel to the intellectual fire that Copernicus started, Tycho showed this “new star” was far beyond the Moon, and that it was possible for the universe beyond the Sun and planets to change.
Astronomers now know that Tycho’s new star was not new at all. Rather it signaled the death of a star in a supernova, an explosion so bright that it can outshine the light from an entire galaxy. This particular supernova was a Type Ia, which occurs when a white dwarf star pulls material from, or merges with, a nearby companion star until a violent explosion is triggered. The white dwarf star is obliterated, sending its debris hurtling into space.
In its two decades of operation, NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory has captured unparalleled X-ray images of many supernova remnants.
Chandra reveals an intriguing pattern of bright clumps and fainter areas in Tycho. What caused this thicket of knots in the aftermath of this explosion? Did the explosion itself cause this clumpiness, or was it something that happened afterward?
This latest image of Tycho from Chandra is providing clues. To emphasize the clumps in the image and the three-dimensional nature of Tycho, scientists selected two narrow ranges of X-ray energies to isolate material (silicon, colored red) moving away from Earth, and moving towards us (also silicon, colored blue). The other colors in the image (yellow, green, blue-green, orange and purple) show a broad range of different energies and elements, and a mixture of directions of motion. In this new composite image, Chandra’s X-ray data have been combined with an optical image of the stars in the same field of view from the Digitized Sky Survey.
Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/RIKEN & GSFC/T. Sato et al; Optical: DSS
The 2006 Chandra three-color image (inset) of a region of the supernova remnant Puppis A (wide-angle view from ROSAT in blue) reveals a cloud being torn apart by a shock wave produced in a supernova explosion. This is the first X-ray identification of such a process in an advanced phase. In the inset, the blue vertical bar and the blue fuzzy ball or cap to the right show how the cloud has been spread out into an oval-shaped structure that is almost empty in the center. The Chandra data also provides information on the temperature in and around the cloud, with blue representing higher temperature gas.
The oval structure strongly resembles those seen on much smaller size scales in experimental simulations of the interaction of supernova shock waves with dense interstellar clouds (see sequence of laboratory images). In these experiments, a strong shock wave sweeps over a vaporized copper ball that has a diameter roughly equal to a human hair. The cloud is compressed, and then expands in about 40 nanoseconds to form an oval bar and cap structure much like that seen in Puppis A.
On a cosmic scale, the disruption of l0-light-year-diameter cloud in Puppis A took a few thousand years. Despite the vast difference in scale, the experimental structures and those observed by Chandra are remarkably similar. The similarity gives astrophysicists insight into the interaction of supernova shock waves with interstellar clouds.
Understanding this process is important for answering key questions such as the role supernovas play in heating interstellar gas and triggering the collapse of large interstellar clouds to form new generations of stars.
Image credit: Chandra: NASA/CXC/GSFC/U.Hwang et al.; ROSAT: NASA/GSFC/S.Snowden et al.
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Supernovas are the explosive deaths of the Universe's most massive stars. In death, these objects blast powerful waves into the cosmos, destroying much of the dust surrounding them.
This 2007 composite from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and Chandra X-ray Observatory shows the remnant of such an explosion, known as N132D, and the environment it is expanding into. In this image, infrared light at 4.5 microns is mapped to blue, 8.0 microns to green, and 24 microns to red. Meanwhile, broadband X-ray light is mapped purple. The remnant itself is seen as a wispy pink shell of gas at the center of this image. The pinkish color reveals an interaction between the explosion's high-energy shockwaves (originally purple) and surrounding dust grains.
Outside of the central remnant, small organic molecules called Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons, or PAHs, are shown as tints of green. Meanwhile, the blue dots represent stars within that lie along the line of sight between the observatories and N132D.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/SAO/CXC; Infrared: NASA/JPL-Caltech/A. Tappe & J. Rho
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