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The optical image (left) of Westerlund 1 shows a dense cluster of young stars, several with masses of about 40 suns. Some astronomers speculated that repeated collisions between such massive stars in the cluster might have led to formation of an intermediate-mass black hole, more massive than 100 suns. A search of the cluster with Chandra in 2005 (right) found no evidence for this type of black hole. Instead they found a neutron star (CXO J164710.2-455216), a discovery which may severely limit the range of stellar masses that lead to the formation of stellar black holes.
The neutron star - a dense whirling ball of neutrons about 12 miles in diameter - revealed itself through periodic X-ray pulsations (every 10.6 seconds). A neutron star is left behind after a massive star completes its evolution and goes supernova. Since extremely massive stars evolve more rapidly than less massive ones, and the progenitor of the neutron star has already exploded as a supernova, its mass must have been greater than 40 solar masses.
If such massive stars produce neutron stars, what types of stars produce stellar black holes? Theoretical calculations indicate that extremely massive stars blow off mass so effectively during their lives that they leave neutron stars when they go supernova. The discovery of the neutron star in Westerlund 1 leaves a small window of initial masses - between about 25 and somewhat less than 40 solar masses - for the formation of black holes from the evolution of single massive stars.
Other factors, such as the star's chemical composition, its rotation rate, or whether it is part of a double star system, may play a role in determining whether a massive star leaves behind a neutron star or a black hole. Further searches of young star clusters are needed to solve the mystery of how stellar black holes are produced.
Image credit: NASA/CXC/UCLA/M.Muno et al.
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This is a 2000 X-ray image of the elliptical galaxy NGC 0507 by the Chandra X-ray Observatory.
Image credit: NASA/CXC/U. Ohio/T.Statler & S.Diehl
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This 2002 image of Jupiter shows concentrations of auroral X-rays near the north and south magnetic poles. While Chandra observed Jupiter for its entire 10-hour rotation, the northern auroral X-rays were discovered to be due to a single 'hot spot' that pulsates with a period of 45 minutes, similar to high-latitude radio pulsations previously detected by NASA's Galileo and Cassini spacecraft.
Although there had been prior detections of X-rays from Jupiter with other X-ray telescopes, no one expected that the sources of the X-rays would be located so near the poles. The X-rays are thought to be produced by energetic oxygen and sulfur ions that are trapped in Jupiter's magnetic field and crash into its atmosphere. Before Chandra's observations, the favored theory held that the ions were mostly coming from regions close to the orbit of Jupiter's moon, Io.
Image credit: NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona/Lockheed Martin
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3C58 is the remnant of a supernova observed in the year 1181 by Chinese and Japanese astronomers. A long look by Chandra in 2004 showed that the central pulsar - a rapidly rotating neutron star formed in the supernova event - is surrounded by a bright torus of X-ray emission. An X-ray jet erupts in both directions from the center of the torus, and extends over a distance of a few light years. Further out, an intricate web of X-ray loops can be seen.
These features are due to radiation from extremely high-energy particles moving in a magnetic field, and show a strong resemblance to the rings, jets and loops around the Crab pulsar. The 3C58 pulsar, the Crab pulsar, and a growing list of other pulsars provide dramatic proof that strong electromagnetic fields around rapidly rotating neutron stars are powerful generators of both high-energy particles and magnetic fields.
The pulsar in 3C58 can't be seen directly in this image, but its presence has been deduced from an earlier Chandra discovery, and confirmation at radio wavelengths, of rapid (66 millisecond) pulsations. The present observations provide strong evidence that the surface of the 3C58 pulsar has cooled to a temperature of slightly less than a million degrees Celsius.
The relatively "cool" surface temperature was a surprise to astrophysicists, since the standard theory for pulsar cooling predicts a much warmer surface at an age of only 830 years. The cooling of a pulsar is due to collisions between neutrons and other subatomic particles in its ultra dense interior where one teaspoonful of matter can weigh more than a billion tons. These collisions produce neutrinos that carry away energy as they escape from the star.
The speed of the cooling in 3C58 indicates that the interaction between neutrons and protons are not well understood at the extreme conditions in pulsars, or that an exotic form of subatomic matter is present.
Image credit: NASA/CXC/SAO/P.Slane et al.
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The 2002 Chandra observations of the peculiar galaxy Arp 220 gives insight into what happens when two galaxies the size of the Milky Way collide. The image shows a bright central region at the waist of a glowing hour-glass-shaped cloud of multimillion degree gas that is rushing out of the galaxy at hundreds of thousands of miles per hour. This "superwind" is thought to be due to explosive activity generated by the formation of hundreds of millions of new stars.
Image credit: NASA/SAO/CXC/J.McDowell
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This 2005 composite X-ray (blue)/optical (red) image of the object NGC 40 shows hot gas around a dying, Sun-like star. NGC 40 is one of a class of objects called planetary nebulas, so-called because they look like the disk of a planet when viewed with a small telescope.
Planetary nebulas provide a preview of how our Sun may look about five billion years from now when most of its nuclear fusion energy sources will have been used up. The star has puffed off its outer layer to leave behind a smaller, hot star with a surface temperature of about 50,000 degrees Celsius.
Radiation from the hot star heats the ejected matter to about 10,000 degrees to produce the complex and graceful nebula (red) about a light year across. The X-rays in the composite image reveal a shell of multimillion degree gas (blue) that has been compressed and heated by a 2-million-miles-per-hour stellar wind from the dying star.
The discovery of hot X-ray emitting clouds of gas within planetary nebulas such as NGC 40 enables astronomers to study the violent demise of Sun-like stars. By observing many planetary nebulas, astronomers hope to be able to determine whether X-ray-emitting clouds represent a short-lived phase of most dying stars or unusually violent conditions within specific planetary nebulas.
In another 30,000 years or so, NGC 40 will fade away, leaving behind a compact, ultradense white dwarf star about the size of Earth. It is estimated that about one planetary nebula is formed in the Galaxy every year, and that they recycle about one solar mass of helium-enriched material back into the Galaxy per year.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/RIT/J.Kastner & R.Montez.; Optical: NSF/AURA/NOAO/WIYN
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With a diameter of about 170,000 light years, the galaxy Messier 101 (M101) is a swirling spiral of stars, gas, and dust whose diameter is nearly twice that of our Milky Way Galaxy. Its orientation allows telescopes to see the spiral structure of the galaxy face-on, giving inspiration for its nickname of the Pinwheel Galaxy. M101 is found in the Ursa Major constellation and is at a distance of about 25 million light years from Earth.
This Chandra image of M101 is one of the longest exposures ever obtained of a spiral galaxy in X-rays. The point-like sources include binary star systems containing black holes and neutron stars, and the remains of supernova explosions. Other sources of X-rays include hot gas in the arms of the galaxy and clusters of massive stars. These X-ray observations of M101 will be used to establish a valuable X-ray profile of a galaxy similar to the Milky Way. This will help astronomers better understand the evolutionary paths that produce black holes, and provide a baseline for interpreting the observations of distant galaxies.
Image credit: NASA/CXC/JHU/K.Kuntz et al.
Chandra's 2002 image of the extremely hot galaxy cluster 1E 0657-56 reveals a bow-shaped shock wave toward the right side of the cluster. This feature, thought to be the result of the merger of a smaller group or sub-cluster of galaxies with 1E 0657-56, gives astronomers a rare opportunity to study how clusters grow.
The shock wave appears to have been formed as 70 million degree Celsius gas in the sub-cluster plowed through 100 million degree gas in the main cluster at a speed of about 6 million miles per hour. This motion created a wind that stripped the cooler gas from the sub-cluster, similar to leaves from a tree being blown off in a storm.
The speed, appearance and shape of the sub-cluster indicates that it would have passed through the core of the larger cluster about 150 million years ago. By the time the gravity of the cluster stops the motion of the sub-cluster, it is likely that the cooler gas will have been totally stripped.
1E 0657-56 is of great interest because it is one of the hottest known clusters. Astronomers hope to use this and future observations to determine if the high temperature of the cluster gas is due to shock waves produced by the merger of many sub-clusters.
Image credit: NASA/SAO/CXC/M.Markevitch et al.
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When viewed by Chandra in 2002, the galaxy cluster Abell 2597 showed a vast cloud of hot gas with two dark cavities - upper left and lower right - about 100,000 light years from the bright center of the cluster. These so-called ghost cavities are thought to be 100 million-year-old relics of an ancient eruption that originated around a massive black hole in the core of a centrally located galaxy.
Though dim, the ghost cavities are not completely empty. They contain a mixture of very hot gas, high-energy particles, and magnetic fields - otherwise the cavities would have collapsed under the pressure of the surrounding hot gas. As they rise through the hot gas like air bubbles in water, the ghost cavities may transport magnetic fields to the cluster gas from a disk surrounding a giant black hole.
If dozens of these cavities were created over the life of the cluster, they could explain the surprisingly strong magnetic field of the multimillion degree Celsius gas that pervades the cluster. Indeed, there is evidence that the explosion that produced the ghost cavities was not a one-time event. A small, bright radio source near the center of the cluster indicates that a new explosion has occurred recently possibly initiating the formation of new cavities.
Image credit: NASA/CXC/Ohio U/B.McNamara et al.
A new record for the most distant galaxy cluster has been set using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and other telescopes. This galaxy cluster may have been caught right after birth, a brief, but important stage of evolution never seen before.
The galaxy cluster is called CL J1001+0220 (CL J1001 for short) and is located about 11.1 billion light years from Earth. The discovery of this object pushes back the formation time of galaxy clusters – the largest structures in the Universe held together by gravity – by about 700 million years.
To read the full article, click here.
NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has given astronomers their most detailed look to date at the X-ray jet blasting out of the nucleus of M87, a giant elliptical galaxy 50 million light years away in the constellation Virgo.
The 2001 X-ray image of the jet reveals an irregular, knotty structure similar to that detected by radio telescopes and the Hubble Space Telescope. At the extreme left of the image, the bright galactic nucleus harboring a supermassive black hole shines. The jet is thought to be produced by strong electromagnetic forces created by matter swirling toward the supermassive black hole. These forces pull gas and magnetic fields away from the black hole along its axis of rotation in a narrow jet. Inside the jet, shock waves produce high-energy electrons that spiral around the magnetic field and radiate by the "synchrotron" process, creating the observed radio, optical and X-ray knots. Synchrotron radiation is caused by high-speed charged particles, such as electrons, emitting radiation as they are accelerated in a magnetic field.
By using the High Energy Transmission Grating (HETG) with the Advanced CCD Imaging Spectrometer (ACIS) detector aboard Chandra, the scientists were able to measure accurately the spectrum, or distribution of the X-rays with energy. This provided strong support for the model where electrons are accelerated to high energies in the knots, radiating X-rays by the synchrotron process.
The spectrum and intensity of the X-rays from the galactic nucleus also indicate that this radiation is not caused by hot gas produced by material falling into the supermassive black hole. Instead, a high-energy, as yet unresolved, outflow close to the black hole may be producing the X-rays by the same synchrotron process that explains the knots in the jet observed by Chandra.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/MIT/H.Marshall et al. Radio: F. Zhou, F.Owen (NRAO), J.Biretta (STScI) Optical: NASA/STScI/UMBC/E.Perlman et al.
This composite image shows M84, a massive elliptical galaxy in the Virgo Cluster, about 55 million light years from Earth. Hot gas around M84 is shown in a Chandra X-ray Observatory image in blue and a radio image from the Very Large Array is shown in red. A background image from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey is shown in yellow and white.
A number of bubbles are visible in the hot gas, outlined with blue X-ray emission. These bubbles were blown by relativistic particles generated by the central supermassive black hole in M84. These particles travel outwards in the form of a two-sided jet. Because smaller bubbles are found inside large bubbles, the impression given by the image is that of Russian dolls, where smaller dolls can be found inside large ones. These nested bubbles provide clear evidence for repeated outbursts from the central black hole.
Supercomputer simulations of the interaction of supermassive black holes with surrounding gas can explain how such "Russian dolls" are created. The simulations reveal the nested bubbles associated with the termination of the jet and their complex interaction with the surrounding gas, somewhat similar to the effervescent bubbles in a glass of champagne.
Image credit: X-ray (NASA/CXC/MPE/A.Finoguenov et al.); Radio (NSF/NRAO/VLA/ESO/R.A.Laing et al); Optical (SDSS)
The galaxy UGC 6697, located about 1.5 million light years from the core of the galaxy cluster Abell 1367, is shown here in a 2005 composite X-ray (blue)- optical (red & green) image. The Chandra image reveals a sharp edge on the lower left that is inside the optical edge of the galaxy, and a long tail of X-radiation extending to the upper right beyond the optical galaxy. These features suggest that the density of the hot gas that pervades the cluster is just right - not too high or not too low - to trigger a burst of star formation by compressing clouds of cool gas in the galaxy.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/SAO/CXC/M.Sun et al.; Optical: GOLDMine/G. Gavazzi et al.
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This is a Chandra X-ray image of the supernovas remnant Cassiopeia A (Cas A) from 1999. The red, green, and blue regions in this Chandra X-ray image of the supernovas remnant Cassiopeia A show where the intensity of low, medium, and high-energy X-rays, respectively, is greatest. The red material on the left outer edge is enriched in iron, whereas the bright greenish white region on the lower left is enriched in silicon and sulfur. In the blue region on the right edge, low and medium energy X-rays have been filtered out by a cloud of dust and gas in the remnant.
Image credit: NASA/CXC/SAO/Rutgers/J.Hughes
In honor of St. Patrick's Day, we present this image of comet Tempel 1 as seen by the Chandra X-ray Observatory on June 30, 2005. The comet was bright and condensed. The Chandra data indicate that the X-rays observed from Tempel 1 are primarily due to the interaction between highly charged oxygen ions in the solar wind and neutral gases from the comet. Chandra observed the comet during the collision of NASA's Deep Impact impactor probe with Tempel 1 on July 4, and it will continue to monitor the comet in the upcoming weeks. These observations could provide information about the expansion of the ejected material away from the comet.
Image credit: NASA/CXC/C.Lisse & S.Wolk
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Astronomers have confirmed the first example of a galaxy cluster where large numbers of stars are being born at its core. Using data from NASA space telescopes and a National Science Foundation radio observatory, researchers have gathered new details about how the most massive black holes in the universe affect their host galaxies.
Galaxy clusters are the largest structures in the cosmos that are held together by gravity, consisting of hundreds or thousands of galaxies embedded in hot gas, as well as invisible dark matter. The largest supermassive black holes known are in galaxies at the centers of these clusters.
For decades, astronomers have looked for galaxy clusters containing rich nurseries of stars in their central galaxies. Instead, they found powerful, giant black holes pumping out energy through jets of high-energy particles and keeping the gas too warm to form many stars.
Now, scientists have compelling evidence for a galaxy cluster where stars are forming at a furious rate, apparently linked to a less effective black hole in its center. In this unique cluster, the jets from the central black hole instead appear to be aiding in the formation of stars. Researchers used new data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and Hubble Space Telescope, and the NSF’s Karl Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) to build on previous observations of this cluster.
The black hole is in the center of a galaxy cluster called the Phoenix Cluster, located about 5.8 billion light years from Earth in the Phoenix Constellation. The large galaxy hosting the black hole is surrounded by hot gas with temperatures of millions of degrees. The mass of this gas, equivalent to trillions of Suns, is several times greater than the combined mass of all the galaxies in the cluster.
This year, NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory celebrates its 20th year in space exploring the extreme universe.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO/G.Schellenberger et al.; Optical:SDSS
More about Chandra's 20th Anniversary
The galaxy cluster Abell 2029 is composed of thousands of galaxies (optical image, right) enveloped in a gigantic cloud of hot gas (X-ray image, left), and an amount of dark matter equivalent to more than a hundred trillion Suns. At the center of this cluster is an enormous, elliptically shaped galaxy that is thought to have been formed from the mergers of many smaller galaxies.
This 2003 Chandra image shows a smooth increase in the intensity of X-rays all the way into the central galaxy of the cluster. These X-rays are produced by the multimillion degree gas, which is confined to the cluster primarily by the gravity of the dark matter. By precisely measuring the temperature and intensity distribution of the X-rays, astronomers were able to make the best map yet of the distribution of dark matter in the inner region of the galaxy cluster.
The X-ray data imply that the density of dark matter increases smoothly all the way into the central galaxy of the cluster. This discovery agrees with the predictions of cold dark matter models, and is contrary to other dark matter models that predict a leveling off of the amount of dark matter in the center of the cluster.
If Abell 2029 is a representative sample of the universe, these results indicate that 70 to 90 percent of the mass of the universe consists of cold dark matter - mysterious particles left over from the dense early universe that interact with each other and "normal" matter only through gravity. Cold dark matter gets its name from the assumption that cold dark matter particles were moving slowly when galaxies and galaxy clusters began to form. The exact nature of these particles is still unknown.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/UCI/A.Lewis et al. Optical: Pal.Obs. DSS
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This 2001 Chandra X-ray image (inset) shows the central region of the starburst galaxy known as NGC 253 in comparison to the optical view. Chandra detects a proportionally high number of suspected intermediate-size black holes – a recently discovered class of objects. NGC 253 has at least six so-called ultraluminous (very powerful X-ray) point sources, and Chandra shows that four of them are located within about 3,000 light years from the galaxy's core. This relative close distance may imply that the ultraluminous objects -- which are usually found slightly farther out -- are gravitating towards the center of the galaxy.
NGC 253 is a starburst galaxy located some 8 million light years from Earth. Starburst galaxies are regions where stars form and explode at an unusually high rate. Chandra observed NGC 253 with the Advanced CCD Imaging Spectrometer (ACIS) instrument for 3.6 hours on December 16, 1999.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/SAO/CXC, Optical: ESO
The 2002 Chandra image of the Tarantula Nebula gives scientists a close-up view of the drama of star formation and evolution. The Tarantula, also known as 30 Doradus, is in one of the most active star-forming regions in our Local Group of galaxies. Massive stars are producing intense radiation and searing winds of multimillion-degree gas that carve out gigantic super-bubbles in the surrounding gas. Other massive stars have raced through their evolution and exploded catastrophically as supernovas, leaving behind pulsars and expanding remnants that trigger the collapse of giant clouds of dust and gas to form new generations of stars.
30 Doradus is located about 160,000 light years from Earth in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of our Milky Way Galaxy. It allows astronomers to study the details of starbursts - episodes of extremely prolific star formation that play an important role in the evolution of galaxies.
At least 11 extremely massive stars with ages of about 2 million years are detected in the bright star cluster in the center of the primary image (left panel). This crowded region contains many more stars whose X-ray emission is unresolved. The brightest source in this region known as Melnick 34, a 130 solar-mass star located slightly to the lower left of center. On the lower right of this panel is the supernova remnant N157B, with its central pulsar.
Image credit: NASA/CXC/Penn State/L.Townsley et al.
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N132D is the remnant of an exploded star in the Large Magellanic Cloud. The 1999 Chandra image shows a highly structured remnant, or shell, of 10-million-degree gas that is 80 light years across. The remnant is thought to be about 3,000 years old. The Large Magellanic Cloud, a companion galaxy to the Milky Way, is 160,000 light years from Earth.
Image credit: NASA/CXC/SAO
A collection of the 3D objects from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory is now available on a new platform from the Smithsonian Institution. This will allow greater access to these unique 3D models and prints for institutions like libraries and museums as well as the scientific community and individuals in the public.
Chandra's 3D datasets are now included in Voyager, a platform developed by the Smithsonian's Digitization Program Office, which enables datasets to be used as tools for learning and discovery. Viewers can explore these fascinating 3D representations of objects in space alongside a statue of George Washington or a skeleton of an extinct mammoth.
The only requirement to access these 3D models is a smartphone, tablet, or computer that has a current web browser.
Video credit: VR version: VR model: NASA/CXC/Brown Univ./A.Dupuis et al.; Simulation: INAF/S. Ustamujic et al.; X-ray data: NASA/CXC/MSFC/D.Swartz et al.)
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The comet-like tail behind the galaxy ESO 137-001 is clearly shown in this 2007 Chandra X-ray Observatory image. The 70,000 light year long tail was created as gas was stripped from ESO 137-001 while it plunges toward the center of Abell 3627, a giant cluster of galaxies.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/MSU/M. Sun et al.; Optical: SOAR (MSU/NOAO/UNC/CNPq-Brazil)/M.Sun et al.
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The 2002 Chandra image of the twin quasars Q2345+007 A, B shows that they are not identical twins. This means that it is unlikely that they are an optical illusion, rather, they were probably created by merging galaxies.
When galaxies collide, the flow of gas onto the central supermassive black holes of each of the galaxies can be enhanced, resulting in two quasars. The light from the quasar pair started its journey toward Earth 11 billion years ago. Galaxies were about three times closer together then than they are now, so collisions were much more likely.
Quasar pairs that are seen close to one another on the sky and are at the same distance from Earth often turn out to be an illusion as part of a gravitationally lensed system. In these cases, the image of a single quasar has been split into two or more images as its light has been bent and focused on its way to Earth by the gravity of an intervening massive object like a galaxy, or a cluster of galaxies.
Image credit: NASA/SAO/CXC/P.Green et al.
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The X-ray data from the Chandra X-ray Observatory have revealed a bright central star surrounded by a cloud of multimillion-degree gas in the planetary nebula known as the Cat's Eye. This Chandra image, where the intensity of the X-ray emission is correlated to the brightness of the orange coloring, captures the expulsion of material from a star that is expected to collapse into a white dwarf in a few million years.
This 2008 composite image of Chandra and Hubble Space Telescope data offers astronomers an opportunity to compare where the hotter, X-ray emitting gas appears in relation to the cooler material seen in optical wavelengths.
This year, NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory celebrates its 20th year in space exploring the extreme universe.
Image credit: X-ray/Optical Composite (X-ray: NASA/UIUC/Y.Chu et al., Optical: NASA/HST
More about Chandra's 20th Anniversary
Chandra's 2003 X-ray image (blue) has been combined with Hubble's optical image (red and green) to compose this stunning and revealing picture of the spiral galaxy NGC 3079. Towering filaments consisting of warm (about ten thousand degrees Celsius) and hot (about ten million degrees Celsius) gas blend to create the bright horseshoe-shaped feature near the center.
The correlation of the warm and hot filaments suggests that they were both formed as a superwind of gas -- rushing out from the central regions of the galaxy -- carved a cavity in the cool gas of disk galactic disk. The superwind stripped fragments of gas off the walls of the cavity, stretched them into long filaments, and heated them. The full extent of the superwind shows up as a fainter conical cloud of X-ray emission surrounding the filaments.
A superwind, such as the one in NGC 3079 originates in the center of the galaxy, either from activity generated by a central supermassive black hole, or by a burst of supernova activity. Superwinds are thought to play a key role in the evolution of galaxies by regulating the formation of new stars, and by dispersing heavy elements to the outer parts of the galaxy and beyond. These latest Chandra data indicate that astronomers may be seriously underestimating the mass lost in superwinds and therefore their influence within and around the host galaxy.
Image credit: NASA/CXC/STScI/U.North Carolina/G.Cecil
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Astronomers may have discovered a new kind of survival story: a star that had a brush with a giant black hole and lived to tell the tale through exclamations of X-rays.
Data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and ESA’s XMM-Newton uncovered the account that began with a red giant star wandering too close to a supermassive black hole in a galaxy about 250 million light years from Earth. The black hole, located in a galaxy called GSN 069, has a mass about 400,000 times that of the Sun, putting it on the small end of the scale for supermassive black holes.
Once the red giant was captured by the black hole’s gravity, the outer layers of the star containing hydrogen were stripped off and careened toward the black hole, leaving the core of the star – known as a white dwarf – behind.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXO/CSIC-INTA/G.Miniutti et al.; Optical: DSS)
"Mini Supernova" Explosion Could Have Big Impact
In Hollywood blockbusters, explosions are often among the stars of the show. In space, 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, astronomers have studied one particular explosion that may provide clues to the dynamics of other, much larger stellar eruptions.
A team of researchers pointed the telescope at 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, before gradually fading away in brightness. Today, astronomers cite GK Persei as an example of a “classical nova,” an outburst produced by a thermonuclear explosion on the surface of a white dwarf star, the dense remnant of a Sun-like star.
Read Full Article: www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/chandra/mini-supernova-explosion-could-have-big-impact.html
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An open question for astronomers about MACS J0416 has been: are we seeing a collision in these clusters that is about to happen or one that has already taken place? Until recently, scientists have been unable to distinguish between these two explanations. Now, the combined data from these various telescopes is providing new answers.
In MACS J0416 the dark matter (which leaves its gravitational imprint in the optical data) and the hot gas (detected by Chandra) line up well with each other. This suggests that the clusters have been caught before colliding. If the clusters were being observed after colliding the dark matter and hot gas should separate from each other, as seen in the famous colliding cluster system known as the Bullet Cluster.
The cluster in the upper left contains a compact core of hot gas, most easily seen in a specially processed image, and also shows evidence of a nearby cavity, or hole in the X-ray emitting gas. The presence of these structures also suggests that a major collision has not occurred recently, otherwise these features would likely have been disrupted. Finally, the lack of sharp structures in the radio image provides more evidence that a collision has not yet occurred.
In the cluster located in the lower right, the observers have noted a sharp change in density on the southern edge of the cluster. This change in density is most likely caused by a collision between this cluster and a less massive structure located further to the lower right.
NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the Chandra program for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, controls Chandra's science and flight operations.
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Since astronomers captured the bright explosion of a star on February 24, 1987, researchers have been searching for the squashed stellar core that should have been left behind. A group of astronomers using data from NASA space missions and ground-based telescopes may have finally found it.
As the first supernova visible with the naked eye in about 400 years, Supernova 1987A (or SN 1987A for short) sparked great excitement among scientists and soon became one of the most studied objects in the sky. The supernova is located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small companion galaxy to our own Milky Way, only about 170,000 light-years from Earth.
While astronomers watched debris explode outward from the site of the detonation, they also looked for what should have remained of the star’s core: a neutron star.
Data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and previously unpublished data from NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR), in combination with data from the ground-based Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) reported last year, now present an intriguing collection of evidence for the presence of the neutron star at the center of SN 1987A.
Image credit: Chandra (X-ray): NASA/CXC/Univ. di Palermo/E. Greco; Illustration: INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Palermo/Salvatore Orlando
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These three quasars, discovered at optical wavelengths by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, are 13 billion light years from Earth, making them the most distant known quasars. The X-rays Chandra detected in 2002 were emitted when the universe was only a billion years old, about 7 percent of the present age of the universe.
A surprising result was that the power output and other properties of these quasars are similar to less distant quasars. This indicates that the conditions around these quasars' central supermassive black holes must also be similar, contrary to some theoretical expectations. As astronomer Smita Mathur of Ohio State, who was involved in the research said, "Perhaps the most remarkable thing about them is that they are so absolutely unremarkable."
By various estimates, the supermassive black holes in these quasars weighed in at somewhere between one and 10 billion times the mass of the Sun. The implication is that the black holes put on a lot of weight soon after the galaxies formed.
Image credit: NASA/CXC/PSU/N.Brandt et al.
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Supermassive black holes in the universe are like a raucous choir singing in the language of X-rays. When black holes pull in surrounding matter, they let out powerful X-ray bursts. This song of X-rays, coming from a chorus of millions of black holes, fills the entire sky -- a phenomenon astronomers call the cosmic X-ray background.
NASA's Chandra mission has managed to pinpoint many of the so-called active black holes contributing to this X-ray background, but the ones that let out high-energy X-rays -- those with the highest-pitched "voices" -- have remained elusive.
New data from NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, have, for the first time, begun to pinpoint large numbers of the black holes belting out the high-energy X-rays. Or, in astronomer-speak, NuSTAR has made significant progress in resolving the high-energy X-ray background.
To read the full article, click here.
This 2004 montage shows three clusters of bright, young stars in X-ray (blue) and infrared (green) light that lie in the direction of the center of the Galaxy. Like many stars in the disk of the Galaxy, they are difficult, if not impossible, to see with an optical telescope because of interstellar dust that blocks the visible light.
Infrared and X-ray data provide evidence for a large amount of dust and gas along the line of sight to the cluster, DB01-42. Invisible to optical telescopes, it is located near the Galactic Center, about 26,000 light years from Earth. Most of the stars in the image produce infrared radiation from their surfaces which have temperatures of several thousand degrees Celsius. The X-radiation from the two bright X-ray sources near the center of the cluster requires gas with temperatures of millions of degrees.
Such extremely hot gas may be due to the collision of stellar winds from two closely orbiting stars. The two bright X-ray sources in the image are likely close binary stars with high-speed stellar winds. The diffuse X-ray glow could be caused by the combined heating of gas in the cluster by winds from many stars.
The light from the stars in the two clusters, DB00-58 and DB00-6 show much less X-ray and infrared absorption. This lower absorption, which still blocks much of the visible light, indicates that these star clusters are not in the Galactic Center, but are foreground objects. The way in which the X-rays are produced in these clusters is likely to be similar to DB01-42.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Northwestern U./C.Law & F.Yusef-Zadeh; Infrared: 2MASS/UMass/IPAC-Caltech/NASA/NSF
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The 2002 Chandra image of Arp 270 shows two galaxies about 90 million light years from Earth in the early stage of a merger. The future evolution of these galaxies will be radically changed by the merger as their mutual gravity distorts their shape, and the collision of gas clouds in the galaxies stimulates the formation of new stars.
The hot spots (blue) located where the disks of the galaxies are colliding are thought to be due to the formation of hundreds of thousands of new stars as the two gaseous disks rotate through each other.
These bursts of star formation create many massive stars that generate intense winds of hot gas, and these stars eventually explode as supernovas. This violent activity produces the hot gas clouds that surround the galaxy disks (red).
Astronomers hope to understand more about how supermassive black holes are formed in the centers of galaxies by studying galaxies at different stages in the merging process. These studies will also provide valuable insight as to how our own Milky Way Galaxy formed and evolved.
In the image, red represents low, green intermediate, and blue high-energy (temperature) X-rays.
Image credit: NASA/U. Birmingham/A.Read
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This image is a composite of visible (or optical), radio, and X-ray data of the giant elliptical galaxy, M87. M87 lies at a distance of 60 million light years and is the largest galaxy in the Virgo cluster of galaxies. Bright jets moving at close to the speed of light are seen at all wavelengths coming from the massive black hole at the center of the galaxy. It has also been identified with the strong radio source, Virgo A, and is a powerful source of X-rays as it resides near the center of a hot, X-ray emitting cloud that extends over much of the Virgo cluster. The extended radio emission consists of plumes of fast-moving gas from the jets rising into the X-ray emitting cluster medium. In X-rays, M87 also reveals evidence for a series of outbursts from the central supermassive black hole.
Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/CfA/W. Forman et al.; Radio: NRAO/AUI/NSF/W. Cotton; Optical: NASA/ESA/Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA), and R. Gendler
Astronomers have captured a cosmic "hand" hitting a wall. The "hand" is actually a nebula of energy and particles generating by a pulsar. As a blast wave from an exploded star moves through space, it is running into a cloud of gas. This result comes from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory spanning 14 years.
Image credit: NASA/CXC/A. Hobart
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It’s the cat’s meow! To celebrate its third year of revealing stunning scenes of the cosmos in infrared light, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has “clawed” back the thick, dusty layers of a section within the Cat’s Paw Nebula (NGC 6334). Focusing Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) on a single “toe bean” within this active star-forming region revealed a subset of mini toe beans, which appear to contain young stars shaping the surrounding gas and dust.
Webb’s look at this particular area of the Cat’s Paw Nebula just scratches the surface of the telescope’s three years of groundbreaking science.
Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI
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M83, a spiral galaxy like the Milky Way, is turned face-on toward Earth. This provides an unfettered view of the entire galaxy that is often impossible with different orientations. NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has detected the explosions of stars, or supernovas, and their aftermath across M83.
Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: NASA/ESA/AURA/STScI, Hubble Heritage Team, W. Blair (STScI/Johns Hopkins University) and R. O'Connell (University of Virginia); Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare
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NGC 1068 is a relatively nearby spiral galaxy containing a black hole at its center that is twice as massive as the Milky Way’s. NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory shows a million-mile-per-hour wind is being driven from NGC 1068’s black hole and lighting up the center of the galaxy in X-rays.
X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical/IR: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI (HST and JWST); Radio: NSF/NRAO/VLA; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/J. Schmidt and N. Wolk
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NGC 2146 is a spiral galaxy with one of its dusty arms blocking the view of the galaxy’s center from Earth’s perspective. X-rays from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory show double star systems and hot gas that is being driven away from the galaxy by supernova explosions and winds from giant stars.
X-rays from Chandra show as pink and purple, while optical data from the Hubble Space Telescope and the Las Cumbres Observatory in Chile and infrared data from NSF’s Kitt Peak are in red, green, and blue.
Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: NASA/ESA/STScI and NOIRLab/NSF/AURA; Infrared: NSF/NOAO/KPNO; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare
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In 2009, NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory released a captivating image: a pulsar and its surrounding nebula that is shaped like a hand.
Since then, astronomers have used Chandra and other telescopes to continue to observe this object. Now, new radio data from the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA), has been combined with Chandra’s X-ray data to provide a fresh view of this exploded star and its environment, to help understand its peculiar properties and shape.
At the center of this new image lies the pulsar B1509-58, a rapidly spinning neutron star that is only about 12 miles in diameter. This tiny object is responsible for producing an intricate nebula (called MSH 15-52) that spans over 150 light-years, or about 900 trillion miles. The nebula, which is produced by energetic particles, resembles a human hand with a palm and extended fingers pointing to the upper right in X-rays.
Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Infrared: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/J. Major
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Dazzling ✨
What you’re seeing is a 98-light-year-wide chunk of star factory. This new image of N79, a giant region of star formation located about 160,000 light-years from Earth, combines observations from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and @NASAWebb.
Visual Description:
Shafts of golden light bursting out of a central glowing orb cut through misty clouds in shades of purples, pinks, yellows, and blues.
X-ray, Chandra: NASA/CXC/Ohio State Univ/T. Webb et al.;
Infrared, Webb: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI;
Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/J. Major
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IC 348 is a star-forming region in our Milky Way galaxy. The wispy structures that dominate the image are interstellar material that reflect the light from the cluster’s stars. The point-like sources in data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory are young stars in the cluster developing there. X-rays from Chandra are shown in red, green and blue, while the James Webb Space Telesceope's infrared data appears as pink, orange and purple.
Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Infrared: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/J. Major
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Scientists have discovered a star behaving like no other seen before, giving fresh clues about the origin of a new class of mysterious objects. This composite image features a mysterious object, possibly an unusual neutron star or white dwarf, residing near the edge of a supernova remnant. The object, known as ASKAP J1832, has been intriguing astronomers from the Chandra X-ray Observatory and Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder radio telescope with its antics and bizarre behavior.
Astronomers have discovered that ASKAP J1832 cycles in radio wave intensity every 44 minutes. This is thousands of times longer than pulsars, which are rapidly spinning neutron stars that have repeated variations multiple times a second. Using Chandra, the team discovered that the object is also regularly varying in X-rays every 44 minutes. This is the first time such an X-ray signal has been found in a long period radio transient like ASKAP J1832.
Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/ICRAR, Curtin Univ./Z. Wang et al.; Infrared: NASA/JPL/CalTech/IPAC; Radio: SARAO/MeerKAT; Image processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/N. Wolk
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This latest installment from our data sonification series features three diverse cosmic scenes. In each, astronomical data collected by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and other telescopes are converted into sounds. Data sonification maps the data from these space-based telescopes into a form that users can hear instead of only see, embodying the data in a new form without changing the original content.
When a star like the Sun begins to run out of helium to burn, it will blow off huge clouds of gas and dust. These outbursts can form spectacular structures such as the one seen in the Cat's Eye nebula. This image of the Cat's Eye contains both X-rays from Chandra around the center and visible light data from the Hubble Space Telescope, which show the series of bubbles expelled by the star over time. To listen to these data, there is a radar-like scan that moves clockwise emanating from the center point to produce pitch. Light that is further from the center is heard as higher pitches while brighter light is louder. The X-rays are represented by a harsher sound, while the visible light data sound smoother. The circular rings create a constant hum, interrupted by a few sounds from spokes in the data. The rising and falling pitches that can be heard are due to the radar scan passing across the shells and jets in the nebula.
Image credit: NASA/CXC/A.Siemiginowska et al.; Illustration: NASA/CXC/M.Weiss
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Twenty-six black hole candidates (labeled in the image) - the largest number found in a galaxy outside our own - were discovered in the Milky Way's galactic neighbor, Andromeda. Using over 150 observations from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory spread over 13 years, researchers identified the bonanza of stellar-mass black holes, that is, those that form from the collapse of a giant star and typically have masses between five and ten times that of the Sun. This 2013 image shows the Chandra view of the central region of Andromeda, also known as M31. It is expected that billions of years in the future, the Milky Way and Andromeda will collide and many more black holes will be created.
Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/CfA/J. Maithil et al.; Illustration: NASA/CXC/SAO/M. Weiss; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/N. Wolk
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E0102-72 is a supernova remnant in the Small Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way. This galaxy is 190,000 light years from Earth. E0102 -72, which is approximately a thousand years old, is believed to have resulted from the explosion of a massive star. Stretching across forty light years of space, the multi-million degree source resembles a flaming cosmic wheel.
Image credit: NASA/CXC/SAO
Young stars much less massive than the Sun can unleash a torrent of X-ray radiation that can significantly shorten the lifetime of planet-forming disks surrounding these stars. This result comes from a new study of a group of nearby stars using data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and other telescopes.
Researchers found evidence that intense X-ray radiation produced by some of the young stars in the TW Hya association (TWA), which is about 160 light years from Earth, has destroyed disks of dust and gas surrounding them. These disks are where planets form. The stars are only about 8 million years old, compared to the 4.5-billion-year age of the Sun. Astronomers want to learn more about systems this young because they are at a crucial age for the birth and early development of planets.
Another key difference between the Sun and the stars in the study involves their mass. The TWA stars in the new study weigh between about one tenth to one half the mass of the Sun and also emit less light. Until now, it was unclear whether X-ray radiation from such small, faint stars could affect their planet-forming disks of material. These latest findings suggest that a faint star’s X-ray output may play a crucial role in determining the survival time of its disk.
These results mean that astronomers may have to revisit current ideas on the formation process and early lives of planets around these faint stars.
Using X-ray data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, the European Space Agency’s XMM-Newton observatory and ROSAT (the ROentgen SATellite), the team looked at the intensity of X-rays produced by a group of stars in the TWA, along with how common their star-forming disks are. They split the stars into two groups to make this comparison. The first group of stars had masses ranging from about one third to one half that of the Sun. The second group contained stars with masses only about one tenth that of the Sun, which included relatively large brown dwarfs, objects that do not have sufficient mass to generate self-sustaining nuclear reactions in their cores.
To read the full article, click here.
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This 2012 image of the galaxy NGC 3627 shows X-rays from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, infrared data from Spitzer Space Telescope, and optical data from the Hubble Space Telescope and the Very Large Telescope. Astronomers conducted a survey of 62 galaxies - which included NGC 3627 - to study the supermassive black holes at their centers. Among this sample, 37 galaxies with X-ray sources are supermassive black hole candidates, and seven were not previously known. Confirming previous Chandra results, this study finds the fraction of galaxies hosting supermassive black holes is much higher than in optical searches for black holes that are relatively inactive.
Credit: NASA/CXC/Ohio State Univ./C.Grier et al.; Optical: NASA/STScI, ESO/WFI; Infrared: NASA/JPL-Caltech
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Astronomers have discovered the largest known cloud of energetic particles surrounding a galaxy cluster — spanning nearly 20 million light-years. The finding challenges long-standing theories about how particles stay energized over time. Instead of being powered by nearby galaxies, this vast region seems to be energized by giant shockwaves and turbulence moving through the hot gas between galaxies.
This new composite image made with X-rays from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory (blue and purple), radio data from the MeerKAT radio telescope (orange and yellow), and an optical image from PanSTARRS (red, green, and blue) shows PLCK G287.0+32.9. This massive galaxy cluster, located about 5 billion light-years from Earth, was first detected by astronomers in 2011.
Previously, studies in radio waves spotted two bright relics, which are giant shockwaves that lit up the cluster's edges. This new study now reveals that the entire cluster is wrapped in a faint radio glow, nearly 20 times the diameter of the Milky Way. A cloud of energetic particles this large has never previously been observed in any galaxy cluster. The prior record holder, Abell 2255, spans roughly 16.3 million light-years.
This finding provides researchers with a new way to study cosmic magnetic fields — one of the major unanswered questions in astrophysics — that could help scientists understand how magnetic fields shape the Universe on the largest scales.
Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO/K. Rajpurohit et al.; Optical: PanSTARRS; Radio: SARAO/MeerKAT; Image processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/N. Wolk
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This 2013 composite image of Kepler's supernova remnant shows Spitzer infrared emission in pink and Chandra X-ray emission from iron in blue. The infrared emission is very similar in shape and location to X-ray emission (not shown here) from material that was expelled by the giant star companion to the white dwarf before the latter exploded. This material forms a disk around the center of the explosion as shown in the labeled version. This composite figure also shows a remarkably large and puzzling concentration of iron on the left side of the center of the remnant but not the right. The authors speculate that the cause of this asymmetry might be the "shadow" in iron that was cast by the companion star, which blocked the ejection of material. Previously, theoretical work has suggested this shadowing is possible for Type Ia supernova remnants.
Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/NCSU/M.Burkey et al; Infrared: NASA/JPL-Caltech.
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