X-Ray Astronomy

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.…

1 week ago

Confirmed. Ultra-Luminous X-Ray Sources are Really That Bright

At the extreme end of astrophysics, there are all sorts of phenomena that seem to be counter-intuitive. For example, how…

7 months ago

The Crab Nebula Looks Completely Different in X-Rays, Revealing its Magnetic Fields

An international team of astronomers has created the most accurate map to date of the Crab Nebula's magnetic field, revealing…

8 months ago

Hungry Black Hole was Already Feasting 800 Million Years After the Big Bang

Black holes swallow everything—including light—which explains why we can't see them. But we can observe their immediate surroundings and learn…

10 months ago

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…

12 months ago

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…

1 year ago

Most Black Holes Spin Rapidly. This one… Doesn’t

A Chandra X-ray Observatory view of the supermassive black hole at the heart of quasar H1821+643. Courtesy NASA/CXC/Univ. of Cambridge/J.…

1 year ago

Astronomers Finally Catch a Nova Detonating on a White Dwarf as it's Happening

On July 7, 2020, the X-ray instrument eROSITA captured an astronomical event that – until then – had only been…

2 years ago

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…

2 years ago

The First Image From NASA’s new X-ray Observatory

It’s first light for one of the newest space observatories! The Imaging X-Ray Polarimetry Explorer team has released their first…

2 years ago