X-ray astronomy is the research area focused on detecting, imaging, and spectroscopically analyzing cosmic sources of X-ray photons, typically in the energy range of ~0.1–100 keV. Because Earth’s atmosphere is opaque to X-rays, this field relies on space-based observatories employing grazing-incidence optics, focusing telescopes, and high-resolution detectors such as CCDs, microcalorimeters, and proportional counters. X-ray astronomy probes high-energy astrophysical processes, including accretion onto compact objects, hot intracluster gas, supernova remnants, stellar coronae, and relativistic jets, enabling quantitative studies of extreme environments, plasma conditions, strong gravity, and energetic feedback in galaxies and large-scale structure.
Astronomers from Germany and Turkey have analyzed available data from various space telescopes to investigate an ultraluminous X-ray source designated X-4, which is located in the nearby galaxy NGC 4631. Results of the new ...
Astronomers have reported the discovery of an unusual X-ray transient detected by the Einstein Probe that does not fit any known class of cosmic explosions. The paper presenting its multiwavelength analysis was published ...
A stunningly concentrated and hefty galaxy cluster, from a time in the universe's history when such massive structures aren't expected to have fully formed yet, is challenging cosmic evolution theories. Across a series of ...
Astronomy
Jun 19, 2026
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The Bullet Cluster has so far been considered evidence of the existence of dark matter. An international team of researchers has now analyzed new data and current images from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). According ...
Astronomy
Jun 19, 2026
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This NASA Hubble Space Telescope image features a galaxy cluster called CL0016+1609, or MACS J0018.5+1626, that is very bright at X-ray wavelengths and is one of the most extensively studied clusters at X-ray and radio wavelengths. ...
Astronomy
Jun 18, 2026
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NASA's "rapid-response" space telescope is slowly falling out of orbit, but a daring mission this summer could allow the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory to continue scanning the sky for many more years to come. In the first ...
Astronomy
Jun 16, 2026
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An international team of astronomers led by Camille Poitras, a Ph.D. student in the Faculty of Science and Engineering at Laval University, has produced the most detailed X-ray view ever obtained of the jet launched by the ...
Astronomy
Jun 16, 2026
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Thanks to the X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission, or XRISM, University of Michigan researchers are helping chip away at one of astronomy's cosmic mysteries: The universe's most massive galaxies appear to be missing stars.
Astronomy
Jun 16, 2026
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Astronomers have detected one of the most powerful ultra-fast outflows ever seen from a distant supermassive black hole. Using XMM-Newton and NuSTAR, a team studied a hyper-luminous quasar at cosmic noon and found two distinct ...
The aftermath of a supernova, a stellar explosion, is usually a slowly fading cloud of hot gas. So when astronomers pointed NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory at the nearby galaxy Messier 83 (M83), they did not expect to find ...
Astronomy
Jun 15, 2026
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