Data from NASA???s NICER telescope on the International Space Station have revealed X-ray surges accompanying radio bursts from the pulsar in the Crab Nebula. The finding shows that these bursts, called giant radio pulses, release far more energy than previously suspected.
Astronomers have painted their best picture yet of an RV Tauri variable, a rare type of stellar binary where two stars -one approaching the end of its life - orbit within a sprawling disk of dust. Their 130-year dataset spans the widest range of light yet collected for one of these systems, from radio to X-rays.
Yellowstone National Park's Old Faithful geyser regularly blasts a jet of boiling water high in the air. Now, an international team of astronomers has discovered a cosmic equivalent, a distant galaxy that erupts roughly every 114 days.
A supermagnetized stellar remnant known as a magnetar blasted out a mix of X-ray and radio signals never observed before. This unique event links magnetars to a phenomenon called fast radio bursts (FRBs) – mysterious, powerful, and usually solitary radio emissions emanating from other galaxies.
The telltale sign that the black hole was feeding vanished, perhaps when a star interrupted the feast. The event could lend new insight into these mysterious objects.
Twenty-nine scientists working at or affiliated with NASA have been named Fellows of the American Astronomical Society (AAS), the major organization of professional astronomers in North America.
Unparalleled observations of a nova outburst in 2018 by a trio of satellites, including two NASA missions, have captured the first direct evidence that shock waves powered most of the explosion's visible light.
Across NASA’s many missions, thousands of scientists, engineers, and other experts and professionals all over the country are doing what they do best, but now from home offices and via video conferencing. With most personnel supporting missions remotely to keep onsite staff at a minimal level in response to COVID-19, the Agency is moving ahead strongly with everything from space exploration to using our technology and innovation to help inform policy makers.
Goddard has canceled all non-mission-essential visits to its facilities. Goddard also is closing its Visitor Centers at Greenbelt and at Wallops Flight Facility, Virginia.
Last fall, the student-built Regolith X-Ray Imaging Spectrometer onboard OSIRIS-REx detected a newly flaring black hole while observing the limb of asteroid Bennu.
The biggest explosion seen in the universe has been found. This record-breaking, gargantuan eruption came from a black hole in a distant galaxy cluster hundreds of millions of light years away.
Astrophysicists are redrawing the textbook image of pulsars (the dense, whirling remains of exploded stars) thanks to NICER, an X-ray telescope aboard the International Space Station. NICER data has provided the first precise and dependable measurements of both a pulsar’s size and its mass, and the first-ever map of hot spots on its surface.
Two decades ago today the X-ray Multi-Mirror Mission (XMM-Newton) launched into orbit. A pioneering satellite for studying the universe with different kinds of light, XMM-Newton has studied over half a million X-ray sources, including supernovae, star-shredding black holes and superdense neutron stars.
On Aug. 20, NASA's NICER telescope saw a spike of X-rays from a massive explosion on a pulsar. It's the brightest X-ray burst NICER has seen so far and shows phenomena that have never been seen together in a single burst.
The FORTIS sounding rocket will launch from the White Sands Missile to observe stars and supernovae as they pump gas into the circumgalactic medium. It's one part of a larger recycling process keeping galaxies alive.
William Zhang won the Goddard Office of the Chief Technologist’s top prize — bestowed annually on those who demonstrate the best in innovation — for his foresight, perseverance, and leadership advancing state-of-the-art X-ray optics.
Recent testing has shown that super-thin, lightweight X-ray mirrors made of a material commonly used to make computer chips can meet the stringent imaging requirements of next-generation X-ray observatories.
This is a map of the entire sky in X-rays recorded by NASA’s Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER), a payload on the International Space Station.
On May 1, 1959, the Beltsville Space Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, was renamed NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in honor of Robert H. Goddard, widely considered the father of modern rocketry. Thus began a 60-year boom in science and technological innovation.