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.
NASA researchers have discovered a perplexing case of a black hole that appears to be "tipped over," rotating in an unexpected direction relative to the galaxy surrounding it. That galaxy, called NGC 5084, has been known ...
Astronomy
Dec 18, 2024
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An international team of astronomers, led by researchers from the Astronomical Observatory of the University of Warsaw, have identified a new class of cosmic X-ray sources. The findings have been published in The Astrophysical ...
Astronomy
Dec 18, 2024
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X-rays are radiated by matter hotter than one million Kelvin, and high-resolution X-ray spectroscopy can tell us about the composition of the matter and how fast and in what direction it is moving. Quantum calorimeters are ...
Quantum Physics
Dec 17, 2024
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Even matter ejected by black holes can run into objects in the dark. Using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, astronomers have found an unusual mark from a giant black hole's powerful jet striking an unidentified object in ...
Astronomy
Dec 10, 2024
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NASA's IXPE (Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer) has helped astronomers better understand the shapes of structures essential to a black hole—specifically, the disk of material swirling around it and the shifting plasma region ...
Astronomy
Dec 9, 2024
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108
Using ESA's XMM-Newton satellite and NASA's Chandra spacecraft, German astronomers have observed a supersoft X-ray source designated RX J0513.9−6951. Results of the observations, published on the arXiv preprint server, shed ...
The Japan-led XRISM (X-ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission) observatory has captured the most detailed portrait yet of gases flowing within Cygnus X-3, one of the most studied sources in the X-ray sky.
Astronomy
Nov 25, 2024
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Normally found only in heavy metal bands or certain post-apocalyptic films, a "flame-throwing guitar" has now been spotted moving through space. Astronomers have captured movies of this extreme cosmic object using NASA's ...
Astronomy
Nov 20, 2024
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An international team of astronomers has conducted a multiwavelength study of an X-ray binary designated 1eRASS J085039.9-421151. Results of the study, published Nov. 4 on the preprint server arXiv, yield new information ...
An international team of astronomers has inspected long-term evolution of quasi-periodic eruptions (QPEs) from a QPE source designated eRO-QPE2. The study found that QPEs from this source are remarkably stable over the investigated ...
