x-rays
Japan’s New X-Ray Observatory Sees First Light
XRISM, the X-ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission, is a joint NASA/JAXA mission led by JAXA. The X-ray space telescope began…
Spider Pulsars are Tearing Apart Stars in the Omega Cluster
Pulsars are extreme objects. They're what's left over when a massive star collapses on itself and explodes as a supernova.…
JWST Follows Neon Signs Toward New Thinking on Planet Formation
Everyone knows that the James Webb Space Telescope is a ground-breaking infrared space telescope that's helping us better understand the…
An Exo-Neptune Beat the Odds and Kept its Atmosphere
As planet-hunting scientists find more and more planets, they've encountered some puzzles. One of them concerns the lack of Neptune-size…
How Close is Too Close to a Kilonova?
Cataclysmic events happen in the Universe all the time. Black hole mergers, supernovae, gamma-ray bursts, and a whole host of…
A Star Came too Close to a Black Hole. It Didn’t End Well
Black holes are confounding objects that stretch physics to its limits. The most massive ones lurk in the centers of…
A Black Hole has been Burping for 100 Million Years
Black holes are gluttonous behemoths that lurk in the center of galaxies. Almost everybody knows that nothing can escape them,…
A Black Hole’s X-Rays are Coming From a Region 2,000 km Away From the Singularity Itself
A study of Cygnus X-1 shows its jets emanate from a region a bit off from the black hole itself.
How Dangerous are Nearby Supernovae to Life on Earth?
Life and supernovae don't mix. From a distance, supernovae explosions are fascinating. A star more massive than our Sun runs…
A Pulsar is Blasting out Jets of Matter and Antimatter
Why is there so much antimatter in the Universe? Ordinary matter is far more plentiful than antimatter, but scientists keep…