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.
Our solar system dwells in a low-density environment called the Local Hot Bubble (LHB), filled by a tenuous, million-degree hot gas emitting dominantly in soft X-rays. A team led by scientists at the Max Planck Institute ...
Astronomy
Oct 29, 2024
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Since the first X-ray image of a comet was reported using an X-ray telescope in 1996, the investigation of charge exchange in collisions between highly charged ions and atoms or molecules has emerged as a hot research topic.
Quantum Physics
Oct 29, 2024
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Research led by the University of Michigan has pored over more than two decades' worth of data from NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory to show there's new knotty science to discover around black holes.
Astronomy
Oct 28, 2024
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New findings using data from NASA's IXPE (Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer) mission offer unprecedented insight into the shape and nature of a structure important to black holes called a corona. The findings are published ...
Astronomy
Oct 17, 2024
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A rare, extremely luminous X-ray outburst has been observed in the Small Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf galaxy that is a close neighbor of our own Milky Way galaxy. The observations, made by the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory ...
Astronomy
Oct 17, 2024
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140
The study of X-ray emission from astronomical objects reveals secrets about the universe at the largest and smallest spatial scales. Celestial X-rays are produced by black holes consuming nearby stars, emitted by the million-degree ...
Astronomy
Oct 15, 2024
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NASA has sent a whole host of spacecraft across the solar system and even beyond. They range from crewed ships to orbit and to the moon to robotic explorers. Among them are a range of mission classes from Flagships to Discovery ...
Space Exploration
Oct 9, 2024
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Using various X-ray space observatories, astronomers from Columbia University in New York and elsewhere have investigated CTCV J2056–3014—an intermediate polar containing one of the fastest-spinning white dwarfs. Results ...
A new study in Physical Review Letters offers the first detection of the cross-correlation between cosmic shear and diffuse X-ray background, helping to understand the distribution of baryonic matter in the universe.
In the realms of material inspection, medical diagnostics, astronomical discovery, and scientific research, the demand for high-resolution and ultrastable X-ray imaging methods has ignited a fervent pursuit of innovative ...
Nanophysics
Jul 10, 2023
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