News

NASA Telescopes Find New Clues About Mysterious Deep Space Signals

February 14th, 2024

Using two of the agency’s X-ray telescopes, researchers were able to zoom in on a dead star’s erratic behavior as it released a bright, brief burst of radio waves.

NuSTAR Observes the Earliest X-rays from a Baby Supernova

January 25th, 2024

The earliest NuSTAR observations of a supernova reveal the turbulent final years of a star's life.

Brightest Cosmic Explosion Ever Detected Had Other Unique Features

June 8th, 2023

When scientists detected the gamma-ray burst known as GRB 221009A on Oct. 9, 2022, they dubbed it the brightest of all time, or BOAT. Most gamma-ray bursts occur when the core of a star more massive than our Sun collapses, becoming a black hole. These events regularly release as much energy in a few minutes as our Sun will release in its entire lifetime.

An X-ray Look at the Heart of Powerful Quasars

May 25th, 2023

Researchers have observed the X-ray emission of the most luminous quasar seen in the last 9 billion years of cosmic history. The new perspective sheds light on the inner workings of quasars and how they interact with their environment.

NASA Study Helps Explain Limit-Breaking Ultra-Luminous X-Ray Sources

April 6th, 2023

In a recent study published in The Astrophysical Journal, researchers report a first-of-its-kind measurement of a ULX taken with NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR). The finding confirms that these light emitters are indeed as bright as they seem and that they break the Eddington limit.

NASA’s NuSTAR Telescope Reveals Hidden Light Shows on the Sun

February 9th, 2023

Some of the hottest spots in the Sun’s atmosphere appear in the telescope’s X-ray view.

NASA Gets Unusually Close Glimpse of Black Hole Snacking on Star

December 20th, 2022

Recent observations of a black hole devouring a wandering star may help scientists understand more complex black hole feeding behaviors.

NuSTAR is Working with IXPE to Reveal the Shape, Orientation of Hot Matter Around Black Hole

November 7th, 2022

Working together with NASA's Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE), NuSTAR is helping to reveal the structure of the corona around black holes.

NuSTAR Celebrates 10 Years of Operations

June 9th, 2022

NuSTAR has provided an unprecedented view of high energy objects, such as remnants of supernova explosions, like black holes and neutron stars, as well as the monster black holes that live in the centers of galaxies.

NuSTAR - von Kármán lecture

May 27th, 2022

The Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, is the first space telescope capable of taking focused high-energy X-ray observations of the cosmos, providing unprecedented information on the dynamics of black holes, exploding stars, and the most extreme active galaxies. Watch a recording of the presentation on YouTube to learn how NuSTAR has expanded our knowledge of the universe after almost a decade of operation.

NASA’s NuSTAR Makes Illuminating Discoveries With ‘Nuisance’ Light

March 1st, 2022

A design quirk in the X-ray observatory has made it possible for astronomers to use previously unwanted light to study even more cosmic objects than before.

NASA Telescope Spots Highest-Energy Light Ever Detected From Jupiter

February 10th, 2022

The planet’s auroras are known to produce low-energy X-ray light. A new study finally reveals higher-frequency X-rays and explains why they eluded another mission 30 years ago.

Black holes can tell us the expansion rate of the Universe

November 10th, 2021

Astronomers have discovered a new way to determine the current expansion rate of the Universe, known as the Hubble constant, using X-ray observations of supermassive black holes at the centre of distant galaxies that are gobbling up huge amounts of gas, known as active galactic nuclei. This could settle an on-going dispute between the two existing methods, which disagree on the age of the Universe by more than a billion years.

NuSTAR Observes the Sun with MaGIXS

September 14th, 2021

With the goal of understanding why the Sun’s corona is so much hotter than its surface, NuSTAR obtained high-energy X-ray observations of the solar corona in coordination with the July 30th suborbital sounding rocket flight of the Marshall Grazing Incidence X-ray Spectrometer (MaGIXS) low-energy X-ray instrument.

NuSTAR and XMM-Newton See Light Echo from Behind a Black Hole

August 4th, 2021

For the first time, astronomers have singled out light coming from behind a black hole, enabling them to study the processes on its far side.

Seeing Some Cosmic X-Ray Emitters Might Be a Matter of Perspective

July 9th, 2021

Known as ultraluminous X-ray sources, the emitters are easy to spot when viewed straight on, but they might be hidden from view if they point even slightly away from Earth.

Uncovering the Hidden Black Holes

June 25th, 2021

From a carefully selected sample of nearby galaxies hosting actively accreting supermassive black holes, astronomers use NuSTAR to find that a third of the black holes are hidden behind thick columns of gas and dust.

NuSTAR's 9th Anniversary

June 13th, 2021

9 years of bringing the High Energy X-ray sky into Focus

Telescopes Unite in Unprecedented Observations of Famous Black Hole

April 14th, 2021

Some of the world’s most powerful telescopes simultaneously observed the supermassive black hole in galaxy M87, the first black hole to be directly imaged.

A Tale of Two Coronae: Solving the Mystery of the “Soft Excess”

March 26th, 2021

Astronomers are investigating the mystery of the “soft excess” of low-energy X-ray emission often seen from accreting supermassive black holes. This enigmatic component can carry a large fraction of the X-ray flux, but is poorly understood. Multiple theories have been suggested. Simultaneous observations with NuSTAR (at high energy X-rays) and XMM-Newton (at low-energy X-rays) provide a powerful combination to investigate its origin.

Shredded star may have caused luminous X-ray transient in a galaxy far, far away

March 12th, 2021

A serendipitous X-ray flare detected by NASA’s Swift observatory is likely associated with a supermassive black hole at the core of a distant galaxy shredding a star that wandered too close.

Reclusive Neutron Star May Have Been Found in Famous Supernova

February 23rd, 2021

What remains of the star that exploded just outside our galaxy in 1987? Debris has obscured scientists’ view, but two of NASA’s X-ray telescopes have revealed new clues.

After-Flare Detected from Black Hole Dance

October 13th, 2020

NuSTAR detects after-flare caused by black hole crashing through the accretion disk of a more massive black hole.

Measuring the masses of magnetic white dwarfs: A NuSTAR Legacy Survey

September 22nd, 2020

Astronomers have used NASA’s NuSTAR to weigh nearly two dozen extremely magnetic dead stars and found that they are heavier than expected.

NuSTAR and XMM-Newton observe a dusty shroud sparkling in X-rays

September 15th, 2020

X-ray observations of a young massive star in a close orbit with the compact remnant of a collapsed star by NASA’s NuSTAR and ESA’S XMM-Newton satellites reveal properties of extreme stellar winds and improve our understanding of how stars evolve.

Hidden in Plain Sight: Monster Black Holes Found in Nearby Galaxies

July 29th, 2020

NASA’s NuSTAR satellite has observed the faintest growing supermassive black holes in our cosmic backyard, and found that some of them are actually luminous “monsters” hiding behind thick clouds of dust and gas.

Runaway Star Might Explain Black Hole's Disappearing Act

July 16th, 2020

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.

NuSTAR's Reaches its 8th Launch Anniversary

June 19th, 2020

NuSTAR reached its 8th launch anniversary on June 13th, 2020

A Cosmic Baby Is Discovered, and It's Brilliant

June 17th, 2020

Astronomers tend to have a slightly different sense of time than the rest of us. They regularly study events that happened millions or billions of years ago, and objects that have been around for just as long. That's partly why the recently discovered neutron star known as Swift J1818.0-1607 is remarkable: A new study in the journal Astrophysical Journal Letters estimates that it is only about 240 years old - a veritable newborn by cosmic standards.

Monitoring the First Ultraluminous Pulsar

May 22nd, 2020

Bachetti and collaborators recently published a comprehensive, multi-year study of the pulsation history of M82 X-2, the first example of the new class of extremely luminous X-ray binary that NuSTAR discovered in 2014.
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