Telescopes give shape to furious black hole winds

NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) and ESA's (European Space Agency) XMM-Newton telescope are showing that fierce winds from a supermassive black hole blow outward in all directions—a phenomenon that ...

New analysis shows a way to self-propel subatomic particles

Some physical principles have been considered immutable since the time of Isaac Newton: Light always travels in straight lines. No physical object can change its speed unless some outside force acts on it.

Magnetar discovered close to supernova remnant Kesteven 79

(Phys.org) —Massive stars end their lives with a bang, exploding as supernovas and releasing massive amounts of energy and matter. What remains of the star is a small and extremely dense remnant: a neutron star or a black ...

Astrophysicists detect destruction of three stars by black holes

Researchers from Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology and the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences have reported registering three possible occasions of the total destruction of stars by supermassive ...

Explainer: How do satellites orbit the Earth?

Take a look at the moon and it isn't hard to imagine it as a planet. A 3,476 kilometres-in-diameter ball of rock, with basalt plains and mountain ranges, whose gravitational pull produces tides here on Earth.

Mysterious X-ray signal intrigues astronomers

(Phys.org) —A mysterious X-ray signal has been found in a detailed study of galaxy clusters using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and ESA's XMM-Newton. One intriguing possibility is that the X-rays are produced by the ...

Pulsating X-rays allow XMM-Newton to unmask a mysterious star

(Phys.org) —XMM-Newton has revealed a unique star. It is a celestial chimera with the body of a normal massive star yet the magnetic field of a dead, stellar dwarf. This makes it a singular object among the billions of ...

Should physicists work to the sound of silence?

In this month's issue of Physics World, Felicity Mellor, a senior lecturer in science communication at Imperial College London, questions whether the requirement of the modern physicist to collaborate and communicate is preventing ...

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