X-Ray Astronomy
Galactic Gas Cloud Could Help Spot Hidden Black Holes
The heart of our Milky Way galaxy is an exotic place. It's swarming with gigantic stars, showered by lethal blasts…
New Movie of a Neutron Star Looks Eerily Like the Phantom of the Opera
This incredible new movie of the Vela pulsar has the unnerving appearance of the Phantom of the Opera – wearing…
X-ray Burst May Be the First Sign of a Supernova
GRB 080913, a distant supernova detected by Swift. This image merges the view through Swift's UltraViolet and Optical Telescope, which…
What Happens When the Winds of Giant Stars Collide?
XMM-Newton observation of the core of the very massive cluster Cyg OB2 located in the constellation of Cygnus, 4700 light-years…
Astronomers Discover Milky Way’s Hot Halo
Artist's illustration of a hot gas halo enveloping the Milky Way and Magellanic Clouds (NASA/CXC/M.Weiss; NASA/CXC/Ohio State/A.Gupta et al.) Our…
A Star’s Dying Scream May Be a Beacon for Physics
When a star suffered an untimely demise at the hands of a hidden black hole, astronomers detected its doleful, ululating…
Pulsar Sets New Speed Record
A pulsar may have been spotted racing through space at over 6 million miles per hour (9.65 million km/h), setting…
First Light Image for NuSTAR
Here is the first image taken by the newest space mission, NuSTAR, or the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, the first…
NuSTAR Successfully Deploys Huge Mast
Nine days after launch -- and right on schedule -- the newest space mission has deployed its unique mast, giving…
Newest X-Ray Observatory Will Hunt for Black Holes and More
[/caption] The next launch of a NASA space mission is the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR. It study wide…