The molecular cloud known as W51 is one of the closest to Earth at a distance of 17,000 light years. The Chandra X-ray observatory observed this cloud in a long exposure lasting 20 hours. About 600 stars have been detected as well as diffuse interstellar gas with a temperature of millions of degrees.
Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) are galaxies with a rapidly growing supermassive black hole (SMBH) at their centre. A recent study, using both ground and space observations, suggests that many of the brightest SMBHs may be escaping our detection due to their heavily obscured environments. This draws a completely different picture compared to our current understanding of luminous AGN.
Astronomers detected two supermassive black holes (SMBHs) orbiting each other, within a giant elliptical galaxies. The SMBHs are 24 light years apart and have a combined mass of about 15 billion times the mass of our Sun. It takes them about 30,000 years to complete a single orbit
Gamma-ray Bursts (GRBs) are the most violent explosions in the universe after the Big Bang. Recently a team of astrophysicists tried to answer what causes the wide range of their spatial offset from their host galaxies.
The Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope (HXMT) is the first astronomical satellite of China
Supermassive black holes exist in the centre of most, if not all, galaxies. An open question in astrophysics, however, is how these enormous black holes, that weigh billion times the mass of the sun, existed in the early universe.
Juno is a NASA spacecraft orbiting the planet Jupiter. It was launched on 5th of August 2011 and entered a polar orbit of Jupiter on the 5th of July 2016. Juno is the second spacecraft to orbit Jupiter, after the Read More …
A map has been created that shows all the sources the XMM-Newton X-ray telescope has detected as it moves between specific targets (slew paths).
Astrophysicists used the NuSTAR X-ray telescope to study 52 supermassive black holes (SMBHs) in nearby merging galaxies to improve our understanding of the relationship between a black hole and the galaxy it lives in.
Astrophysicists used data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory in conjunction with radio observations and computer simulations to find the origin of one of the mysterious features that have been observed in the Perseus galaxy cluster.
