Tag: X-Ray

ScienceDaily (July 27, 2011) The flow of hot gas toward a black hole has been clearly imaged for the first time in X-rays.

The observations from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory will help tackle two of the most fundamental problems in modern astrophysics: understanding how black holes grow and how matter behaves in their intense gravity.



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New look at x-ray data reveals monsters at hearts of first galaxies.

Long gazes into deep space have turned up something huge: Signs of supermassive black holes devouring matter at the hearts of the universe's first galaxies.

Theorists had suspected that such enormous black holes existed just a billion years after the big bang, since most if not all of mature large galaxies have the matter-gobbling monsters at their centers.

ScienceDaily (July 1, 2010) For decades, X-ray astronomers have studied the complex behavior of binary systems pairing a normal star with a black hole.
In these systems, gas from the normal star streams toward the black hole and forms a disk around it. Friction within the disk heats the gas to millions of degrees -- hot enough to produce X-rays.
At the disk's inner edge, near the black hole, strong magnetic fields eject some of the gas into dual, oppositely directed jets that blast outward at about half the speed of light.

The worlds most intense X-ray laser may soon be the fastest strobe-light camera ever. Two of the lasers first experiments show the device will be able to take snapshots of single molecules in motion without destroying them first.

Read More http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/06/x-ray-laser/#ixzz0sMnTzaoC

ScienceDaily (May 25, 2010) For over 10 years, NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has repeatedly observed the Andromeda Galaxy for a combined total of nearly one million seconds. This unique data set has given astronomers an unprecedented view of the nearest supermassive black hole outside our own Galaxy.

ScienceDaily (Jan. 23, 2010) Astronomer were surprised to find two distinct "tails" found on a long tail of gas that is believed to be forming stars where few stars have been formed before.

"The double tail is very cool -- that is, interesting -- and ridiculously hard to explain," said Donahue, a professor in MSU's Department of Physics and Astronomy. "It could be two different sources of gas or something to do with magnetic fields. We just don't know."

ScienceDaily (Dec. 19, 2009) Using a microscope the size of a football field, researchers from The University of Western Ontario are studying why some insects can survive freezing, while others cannot.

Why is this important? Because the common fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster) is one of the bugs that cannot survive freezing and the little creature just so happens to share much of the same genetic makeup as humans, therefore finding a way to freeze them for research purposes is a top priority for geneticists the world over (about 75 per cent of known human disease genes have a recognizable match in the genetic code of fruit flies).

ScienceDaily (Dec. 3, 2009) Every cook knows the ingredients for making bread: flour, water, yeast, and time. But what chemical elements are in the recipe of our universe?

Most of the ingredients are hydrogen and helium. These cosmic lightweights fill the first two spots on the famous periodic table of the elements.