Tag: Black holes
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NASA picks IXPE: Space telescope will study X-ray fingerprints of black holes
An artist’s conception shows the accretion disk around an active black hole. (NASA Illustration) NASA is committing $188 million to build and launch a space telescope to observe patterns in the X-ray radiation emanating from black holes, neutron stars and pulsars. The Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer, or IXPE, was chosen from a field of three…
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Japan’s Hitomi observatory made cosmic discovery before failing
The Perseus galaxy cluster is filled with hot X-ray-emitting gas, as seen in this image from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. Astronomers using the Soft X-ray Spectrometer aboard the Hitomi satellite have, for the first time, mapped the motion of this gas and determined its velocity structure across a large part of the cluster. The square…
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LIGO gets lit up again by gravitational waves from another black hole crash
An artist’s conception shows gravitational waves emanating like ripples in space time as two black holes approach each other in their orbits. (Credit: T. Pyle / LIGO) It looks as if gravitational-wave watchers are in for a bumpy, beautiful ride. Scientists using the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, or LIGO, have confirmed the detection of another…
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Maybe black holes (and wormholes) aren’t as monstrous as we thought
Here’s one concept for the look of a black hole. Image: Ute Kraus, [CC BY-SA 2.5] via Wikimedia Commons Black holes may have gotten a bad rap. And wormholes just might be a realistic way to travel Star Trek-style after all. Years ago, the traditional wisdom about those exotic cosmic phenomena was pretty forbidding: Once…
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Attitude control failures led to break-up of Japanese astronomy satellite
Artist’s concept of Japan’s Hitomi satellite. Credit: JAXA/Akihiro Ikeshita Japan’s Hitomi X-ray observatory was beset by a series of attitude control problems March 26 that caused the satellite to spin out of control and shed sizable chunks of its power-generating solar panels or deployable telescope, according to engineers analyzing fragments of telemetry data sent to…
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Live coverage: H-2A rocket delivers on 30th flight
Live coverage of the countdown and launch of an H-2A rocket with the Astro-H X-ray astronomy mission. Text updates will appear automatically below; there is no need to reload the page. Follow us on Twitter.