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    Chandra X-ray tagged posts

    X-ray and Radio go ‘Hand in Hand’ in New Image

    August 21, 2025, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    X-ray: NASA/CXC/Univ. of Hong Kong/S. Zhang et al.; Radio: ATNF/CSIRO/ATCA; H-alpha: UK STFC/Royal Observatory Edinburgh; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/N. Wolk

    In 2009, NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory released a captivating image: a pulsar and its surrounding nebula that is shaped like a hand. Since then, astronomers have used Chandra and other telescopes to continue to observe this object. Now, new radio data from the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) has been combined with Chandra’s X-ray data to provide a fresh view of this exploded star and its environment, to help understand its peculiar properties and shape.

    At the center of this new image lies the pulsar B1509-58, a rapidly spinning neutron star that is only about 12 miles in diameter...

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    Is Dark Matter ‘Fuzzy’?

    April 30, 2017, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Four of the 13 galaxies clusters used in the study. The clusters are, starting at the top left and going clockwise, Abell 262, Abell 383, Abell 1413, and Abell 2390.

    Four of the 13 galaxies clusters used in the study. The clusters are, starting at the top left and going clockwise, Abell 262, Abell 383, Abell 1413, and Abell 2390.

    Astronomers have used data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory to study the properties of dark matter. The study, which involves 13 galaxy clusters, explores the possibility that dark matter may be more “fuzzy” than “cold,” perhaps even adding to the complexity surrounding this cosmic conundrum.
    For several decades, astronomers have known about dark matter. Although it cannot be observed directly, dark matter does interact via gravity with normal, radiating matter (that is, anything made up of protons, neutrons, and electrons bundled into atoms)...

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    Bump on a Plot from Chandra X-ray observatory reveals excess of X-rays, hinting at Dark Matter

    February 5, 2017, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    A massive cluster of yellowish galaxies, seemingly caught in a red and blue spider web of eerily distorted background galaxies, makes for a spellbinding picture from the new Advanced Camera for Surveys aboard NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. To make this unprecedented image of the cosmos, Hubble peered straight through the center of one of the most massive galaxy clusters known, called Abell 1689. The gravity of the cluster's trillion stars — plus dark matter — acts as a 2-million-light-year-wide lens in space. This gravitational lens bends and magnifies the light of the galaxies located far behind it. Some of the faintest objects in the picture are probably over 13 billion light-years away (redshift value 6). Strong gravitational lensing as observed by the Hubble Space Telescope in Abell 1689 indicates the presence of dark matter. Credit: NASA, N. Benitez (JHU), T. Broadhurst (Racah Institute of Physics/The Hebrew University), H. Ford (JHU), M. Clampin (STScI),G. Hartig (STScI), G. Illingworth (UCO/Lick Observatory), the ACS Science Team and ESA Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-02-plot-chandra-x-ray-observatory-reveals.html#jCp

    A massive cluster of yellowish galaxies, seemingly caught in a red and blue spider web of eerily distorted background galaxies, makes for a spellbinding picture from the new Advanced Camera for Surveys aboard NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. To make this unprecedented image of the cosmos, Hubble peered straight through the center of one of the most massive galaxy clusters known, called Abell 1689. The gravity of the cluster’s trillion stars — plus dark matter — acts as a 2-million-light-year-wide lens in space. This gravitational lens bends and magnifies the light of the galaxies located far behind it. Some of the faintest objects in the picture are probably over 13 billion light-years away (redshift value 6)...

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    Markarian 1018: Starvation Diet for Black Hole Dims Brilliant Galaxy

    November 10, 2016, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Markarian 1018: Starvation Diet for Black Hole Dims Brilliant Galaxy

    Markarian 1018 is an “active galaxy” that has brightened and dimmed over about 30 years. The black hole at the center waS being deprived of enough fuel to illuminate its surroundings. Credit X-ray: NASA/CXC/Univ of Sydney/R.McElroy et al, Optical: ESO/CARS Survey

    Astronomers may have solved the mystery of the peculiar volatile behavior of a supermassive black hole at the center of a galaxy. Combined data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and other observatories suggest the black hole is no longer being fed enough fuel to make its surroundings shine brightly. Many galaxies have an extremely bright core, or nucleus, powered by material falling toward a supermassive black hole. These “active galactic nuclei”, AGN, are some of the brightest objects in the Universe.

    Astronomers classify AGN...

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