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"Everything should be as simple as it is, but not simpler", Albert Einstein
Browsing All posts tagged under »Chandra«
Westerlund 2: A Stellar Sight
This Chandra X-ray Observatory image shows Westerlund 2, a young star cluster with an estimated age of about one or two million years. Until recently little was known about this cluster because it is heavily obscured by dust and gas. However, using infrared and X-ray observations to overcome this obscuration, Westerlund 2 has become regarded […]
X-Ray Absorption by the Earth’s atmosphere
December 26, 2012
Absorption by the Earth’s atmosphere restricts ground-based observations to radio, near infrared, and visible wavelengths. X-rays are absorbed high above the Earth in the following way: X-ray photons–tiny high-energy packets of electromagnetic radiation–are absorbed by encounters with individual atoms. Even though the atoms in the atmosphere are widely spaced, the total thickness of the atmosphere […]
The Milky Way’s Hot Gas Halo
September 25, 2012
This artist’s illustration shows an enormous halo of hot gas (in blue) around the Milky Way galaxy. Also shown, to the lower left of the Milky Way, are the Small and Large Magellanic Clouds, two small neighboring galaxies. The halo of gas is shown with a radius of about 300,000 light years, although it may […]
CID-42: Exceptional Properties
June 5, 2012
The galaxy at the center of this image contains an X-ray source, CID-42, with exceptional properties. After combining data from several telescopes — including NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory — researchers think that CID-42 contains a massive black hole being ejected from its host galaxy at several million miles per hour. The main panel is a […]
Chandra Sees Remarkable Outburst From Old Black Hole
April 30, 2012
An extraordinary outburst produced by a black hole in a nearby galaxy has provided direct evidence for a population of old, volatile stellar black holes. The discovery, made by astronomers using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, provides new insight into the nature of a mysterious class of black holes that can produce as much energy in […]
Dark Matter Core Defies Explanation
March 2, 2012
This composite image shows the distribution of dark matter, galaxies, and hot gas in the core of the merging galaxy cluster Abell 520, formed from a violent collision of massive galaxy clusters. The natural-color image of the galaxies was taken with NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and with the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope in Hawaii. Superimposed on the […]
NASA’s Chandra Finds Fastest Wind From Stellar-Mass Black Hole
February 21, 2012
Astronomers using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory have clocked the fastest wind yet discovered blowing off a disk around a stellar-mass black hole. This result has important implications for understanding how this type of black hole behaves. The record-breaking wind is moving about 20 million mph, or about 3 percent of the speed of light. This […]
The largest galaxy cluster in early universe
January 10, 2012
An exceptional galaxy cluster, the largest seen in the distant universe, has been found using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and the National Science Foundation-funded Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) in Chile. Officially known as ACT-CL J0102-4915, the galaxy cluster has been nicknamed “El Gordo” (“the big one” or “the fat one” in Spanish) by the researchers […]
Celestial Bauble Intrigues Astronomers
December 21, 2011
With the holiday season in full swing, a new image from an assembly of telescopes has revealed an unusual cosmic ornament. Data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and ESA’s XMM-Newton have been combined to discover a young pulsar in the remains of a supernova located in the Small Magellanic Cloud, or SMC. This would be […]
NASA Telescopes Help Solve Ancient Supernova Mystery
October 24, 2011
A mystery that began nearly 2,000 years ago, when Chinese astronomers witnessed what would turn out to be an exploding star in the sky, has been solved. New infrared observations from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope and Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, reveal how the first supernova ever recorded occurred and how its shattered remains […]
G299.2-2.9, a Middle-Aged Supernova Remnant
October 12, 2011
G299.2-2.9 is an intriguing supernova remnant found about 16,000 light years away in the Milky Way galaxy. Evidence points to G299.2-2.9 being the remains of a Type Ia supernova, where a white dwarf has grown sufficiently massive to cause a thermonuclear explosion. Because it is older than most supernova remnants caused by these explosions, at […]
Stars Could Have Wormholes At Their Cores
September 1, 2011
Chandra Finds Superfluid in Neutron Star’s Core A new discovery from a famous exploded star has provided the first evidence for a bizarre state of matter in its core. Read more:http://chandra.harvard.edu/blog/node/261 Scientists investigate the possibility of wormholes between stars Source: http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-02-scientists-possibility-wormholes-stars.html Wormholes are one of the stranger objects that arise in general relativity. Although no experimental […]
Cosmic Exclamation Point
August 12, 2011
VV 340, also known as Arp 302, provides a textbook example of colliding galaxies seen in the early stages of their interaction. The edge-on galaxy near the top of the image is VV 340 North and the face-on galaxy at the bottom of the image is VV 340 South. Millions of years later these two […]
NASA’s Chandra Observatory Images Gas Flowing Toward Black Hole
July 27, 2011
The flow of hot gas toward a black hole has been clearly imaged for the first time in X-rays. The observations from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory will help tackle two of the most fundamental problems in modern astrophysics: understanding how black holes grow and how matter behaves in their intense gravity. The black hole is […]
NASA’s Chandra Finds Massive Black Holes Common in Early Universe
June 15, 2011
Using the deepest X-ray image ever taken, astronomers found the first direct evidence that massive black holes were common in the early universe. This discovery from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory shows that very young black holes grew more aggressively than previously thought, in tandem with the growth of their host galaxies. By pointing Chandra at […]
December 27, 2012
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