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.
A new video shows the evolution of Kepler's Supernova Remnant using data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory captured over more than two and a half decades.
Astronomy
Jan 7, 2026
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Astronomers have obtained the sharpest-ever X-ray spectrum of an iconic active galaxy, providing the most accurate, precise view ever obtained of the extreme relativistic effects imprinted onto the spacetime around a supermassive ...
Astronomy
Jan 5, 2026
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Using the Einstein Probe (EP), astronomers have detected a new X-ray transient event, which turned out to be an X-ray flare from the star PM J23221-0301 located about 150 light years away. The finding was reported in a research ...
Celebrate the New Year with the "Champagne Cluster," a galaxy cluster seen in this new image from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and optical telescopes.
Astronomy
Dec 30, 2025
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Mid-infrared observations from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, shown in white, gray, and red, are combined here with X-ray data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, highlighted in blue. Together, these different wavelengths ...
Astronomy
Dec 30, 2025
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Among the more puzzling cosmic phenomena discovered over the past few decades are brief and very bright flashes of blue and ultraviolet light that gradually fade away, leaving behind faint X-ray and radio emissions. With ...
Astronomy
Dec 16, 2025
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The European Space Agency's X-ray space observatory XMM-Newton observed interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS on 3 December for around 20 hours. During that time, the comet was about 282–285 million km from the spacecraft.
Astronomy
Dec 15, 2025
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310
Astronomers have employed NASA's Chandra spacecraft to perform X-ray observations of a massive galaxy cluster known as SPT-CL J0217-5014. Results of the observational campaign, published December 4 on the arXiv preprint server, ...
An international team of astronomers, led by SRON, has observed a sudden outburst of matter near the supermassive black hole NGC 3783 at speeds reaching up to 20% of the speed of light. During a 10-day observation, mainly ...
Astronomy
Dec 9, 2025
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For the first time, scientists have made a clear X-ray detection of chlorine and potassium in the wreckage of a star using data from the Japan-led XRISM (X-ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission) spacecraft.
Astronomy
Dec 8, 2025
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