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19 July 2008
How do you Weigh a Supermassive Black Hole? Take its Temperature
Working out the mass of huge black holes, like the ones hiding in the centre of galactic nuclei, is no easy task and attempts are being made to find novel ways to weigh them. Using data from the Chandra X-ray Observatory, two scientists have confirmed a theory they conceived ten years ago, that the supermassive [...]
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18 June 2008
Supermassive Black Holes are Not Fussy Eaters
By combining observations from a multitude of observatories, all looking at spiral galaxy M81, astronomers have taken a very close and intimate look at a supermassive black hole's feeding habits. As supermassive black holes (of tens of millions of solar masses) and stellar black holes (of a few solar masses) exist in entirely different environments, [...]
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21 April 2008
Light Echo from X-Ray Flare Reveals Existence of a Molecular Torus Surrounding a Supermassive Black Hole
The light echo of an X-ray flare from the nucleus of a galaxy has been observed. The flare almost certainly originates from a single star being gravitationally ripped apart by a supermassive black hole in the galactic core. As the star was being pulled into the black hole, its material was injected into the black [...]
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15 April 2008
Milky Way's Black Hole Gave Off a Burst 300 Years Ago
Our Milky Way's black hole is quiet - too quiet - some astronomers might say. But according to a team of Japanese astronomers, the supermassive black hole at the heart of our galaxy might be just as active as those in other galaxies, it's just taking a little break. Their evidence? The echoes from a [...]
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23 March 2008
Light Echos from 400 Year Old Supernova Observed for the First Time (Time-lapse Video)
Its observations like these that really give us an idea about how big the cosmos actually is. A star in a small galaxy called the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), some 160,000 light years from Earth, exploded as a massive supernova 400 years ago (Earth years that is). Combining the observations from an X-ray observatory and [...]
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21 February 2008
Pulsars are Exploding Unexpectedly and "Magnetars" Might be to Blame
Pulsars are fast-spinning, highly radiating neutron stars. Most pulsars emit radio, X-ray and gamma radiation at regular intervals (usually periods of a few milliseconds to a few seconds), in fact many pulses keep the accuracy of the most accurate atomic clocks on Earth. However, occasionally, these rapidly rotating bodies undergo a violent change, blasting massive [...]
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14 February 2008
Researchers Find a Supernova, Before it Exploded
The problem with supernovae is that you never know where they're going to happen. Your only clue is the bright flash in the sky, and then it's too late. But a team of European researchers think they were lucky enough to have spotted the precursor to supernova.
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17 December 2007
Galactic Black Hole Fires a Jet at a Nearby Neighbour
Ouch, that's going to leave a mark. A new photograph captured by NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory shows a powerful jet blasting out of one galaxy, and colliding with another. As the jet tears through the galaxy, it could have serious implications for planetary formation, and trigger a wave of new star formation.
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28 November 2007
Neutron Star Seen Hurtling Out of the Milky Way
Like a baseball struck by a bat, there's a neutron star out there that's going, going, gone. Discovered using the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, the neutron star appears to be the result of a lopsided supernova explosion. It's now hurtling away from the Milky Way faster than 4.8 million km/h (3 million mph). And it's never [...]
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15 November 2007
Chandra Sees Star Formation in NGC 281
Here's a short little post about the star forming nebula NGC 281, captured by NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory. This photograph is actually a composite of several wavelengths, imaged by ground and space-based observatories. The optical data (red, orange and yellow) shows the clouds of gas and dust, and the dark lanes of obscuring dust where [...]
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23 October 2007
Chandra Sees the Death of a Star in Detail
This absolutely beautiful object has a big of a bizarre name: G292.0+1.8. But don't let that astronomical jargon throw you, you're looking at a supernova remnant, captured by NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory and ground-based observatories. It's considered a textbook example of what remains after a massive star blows itself apart as a supernova. But it's [...]
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03 October 2007
Hubble and Chandra View the Orion Nebula Together
It's not a huge story, just some cool science and a pretty picture. Here's a newly released image of the Orion Nebula, captured by two of the great observatories: the Chandra X-Ray Observatory and the Hubble Space Telescope. The bright blue and orange points are young stars, blazing out the X-rays visible to Chandra, while [...]
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31 August 2007
Supernovae Blowing Superbubbles in the Small Magellanic Cloud
At a distance of only 200,000 light years, the Small Magellanic Cloud is one of the Milky Way's closest galactic neighbours. Thanks to its brutal treatment by our galaxy's gravity, the galaxy has massive regions of active star formation, and regular supernova explosions. Astronomers studied the region with the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, and saw superbubbles [...]
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09 August 2007
Subtle Supernova Remnants
Here are two images of supernova remnants, made with combined data from NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory and ESA's XMM-Newton. For both of these images, XMM-Newton captured the wider field view, while Chandra focused in on key regions of interest to researchers.
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25 July 2007
Counting up the Active Black Holes with Chandra
The newest image released from NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory is helping astronomers build up a census of the number of actively feeding supermassive black holes across the Universe. Scientists are hoping to build up a comprehensive picture of where (and thus when), these black holes were blasting out radiation. It's now thought that almost every galaxy [...]
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