Astronomers have found a pulsating, dead star beaming with the energy of about 10 million suns. This is the brightest pulsar – a dense stellar remnant left over from a supernova explosion – ever recorded. The discovery was made with NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR.
“You might think of this pulsar as the ‘Mighty Mouse’ of stellar remnants,” … Read the rest of this article
Scientists using ESA’s XMM-Newton space telescope have discovered that a curious dead star has been hiding one of the strongest magnetic fields in the Universe all along, despite earlier suggestions of an unusually low magnetic field.
The object, known as SGR 0418+5729 (or SGR 0418 for short), is a magnetar, a particular kind of neutron star.
A neutron star is … Read the rest of this article
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has provided the strongest evidence yet that short-duration gamma-ray bursts are triggered by the merger of two small, super-dense stellar objects, such as a pair of neutron stars or a neutron star and a black hole.
The definitive evidence came from Hubble observations in near-infrared light of the fading fireball produced in the aftermath of a … Read the rest of this article
During a powerful solar blast on March 7, NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope detected the highest-energy light ever associated with an eruption on the sun. The discovery heralds Fermi’s new role as a solar observatory, a powerful new tool for understanding solar outbursts during the sun’s maximum period of activity.
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During a powerful solar blast in March, NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray …
Astronomers are actively hunting a class of supermassive black holes throughout the universe called blazars thanks to data collected by NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE). The mission has revealed more than 200 blazars and has the potential to find thousands more.
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This artist’s concept shows a “feeding,” or active, supermassive black hole with a jet streaming outward at nearly …
An international team of scientists using NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has discovered a surprisingly powerful millisecond pulsar that challenges existing theories about how these objects form.
At the same time, another team has located nine new gamma-ray pulsars in Fermi data, using improved analytical techniques.
A pulsar is a type of neutron star that emits electromagnetic energy at periodic … Read the rest of this article
Two studies appearing in the Aug. 25 issue of the journal Nature provide new insights into a cosmic accident that has been streaming X-rays toward Earth since late March. NASA’s Swift satellite first alerted astronomers to intense and unusual high-energy flares from the new source in the constellation Draco.
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On March 28, 2011, NASA’s Swift detected intense X-ray flares thought …
The Dawn spacecraft has completed a graceful spiral into the first of four planned science orbits during the spacecraft’s yearlong visit to Vesta. The spacecraft started taking detailed observations on Aug. 11 at 9:13 a.m. PDT (12:13 a.m. EDT), which marks the official start of the first science-collecting orbit phase at Vesta, also known as the survey orbit.
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3D Image …
Scientists using NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope have detected beams of antimatter produced above thunderstorms on Earth, a phenomenon never seen before.
Scientists think the antimatter particles were formed inside thunderstorms in a terrestrial gamma-ray flash (TGF) associated with lightning. It is estimated that about 500 TGFs occur daily worldwide, but most go undetected.
“These signals are the first direct … Read the rest of this article
Further to Alert Notice #353 (July 11, 2007), Dr. Markus Boettcher (OhioUniversity) requests optical observations of the blazar 3C 66A during its current high state. Optical observations will support gamma-ray observations by the VERITAS telescope in Arizona. All observations, including visual estimates and CCD photometry … Read the rest of this article
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