Space Station Threshold

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 [...]

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 [...]

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.

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.

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 [...]

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 ...

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 [...]

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, ...

NASA’s Chandra X-Ray observatory might have observed a brand new kind of supernova, or maybe it’s just an unusually bright supernova. Whatever the case, the explosion of SN 2006gy seems to be the brightest supernova ever observed, flaring with 100 times the energy of a typical exploded star. The team that discovered SN 2006gy think ...

When we look into the skies with our eyes, we see in the visible spectrum. Although objects can look beautiful, it’s only a fraction of the entire electromagnetic spectrum. To really see and understand the Universe, you’ll want to look in different regions of the spectrum. The three great observatories: Hubble, Spitzer and Chandra, ...