XMM-Newton Latest News

For older news stories regarding XMM-Newton please visit the News Archive

28-Feb-2025
Astronomers Uncover Key Evidence for the Existence of Intermediate-Mass Black Hole
A team of Chinese researchers has detected, for the first time, an X-ray quasi-periodic signal from a tidal disruption event (TDE) involving an intermediate-mass black hole (IMBH). Using ESA's XMM-Newton satellite, the researchers observed an 85-second oscillating X-ray signal from a previously suggested IMBH TDE candidate. The findings, published on February 28, 2025, in Nature Astronomy, provide crucial evidence supporting the existence of IMBHs — a missing link between stellar-mass and supermassive black holes. The black hole is estimated to have a mass between 9,900 and 16,000 solar masses, placing it within the predicted range for IMBHs. This discovery opens new possibilities for detecting and studying IMBHs through X-ray timing analysis of TDEs.
Further details on nao.cas web portal.

19-Feb-2025
Observations of Young Stellar Object HL Tauri Using XMM-Newton and Chandra
Using ESA's XMM-Newton satellite and NASA's Chandra X-ray observatory, astronomers have observed a young stellar object known as HL Tauri. Results of the observation campaign, presented Feb. 11 on the arXiv pre-print server, yield important insights into long-term X-ray variability and properties of this object. HL Tauri, located approximately 450 light-years away in the Taurus constellation, is a protoplanetary disk system that has garnered significant interest due to its potential for planet formation.
Further details on Phys.org web portal.

19-Feb-2025
The third version of the XMM-Newton slew survey catalogue (XMMSL3) is now out
The third version of the XMM-Newton slew survey catalogue, XMMSL3, has been released on 19th February 2025 by the XMM-Newton Survey Science Centre (XMM-SSC) in collaboration with the SOC. This version includes an extra 8.5 years of data with respect to XMMSL3. There are 140735 X-ray detections which relate to 116598 unique sources, doubling the number of detections available in the previous version, XMMSL2. These detections come from 3120 pn slew observations that were taken by the 23rd August 2023. This catalogue version covers more than 90% of the sky, where some regions of the sky have been pointed as many as 78 times. Around 8% of all the detections are classified as extended. The median positional uncertainty of the catalogue detections is 13 arcseconds. Mean fluxes in the catalogue are ~2.8E-12 and ~6.5E-11 erg/cm²/s in the soft (0.2-2 keV) and hard (2-12 keV) X-ray band, respectively.

Details of the catalogue, the catalogue files and full XMMSL3 documentation are available on the XMM-SSC webpages at:
     http://xmmssc.irap.omp.eu/Catalogue/XMMSL3/XMMSL3.html

FITS and CSV versions of the full XMMSL3 catalogue are also available for download at
     http://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/xmm-newton/xsa

Alongside the XSA user interface, XMMSL3 is also distributed through:
The XMM-Newton XSA : http://nxsa.esac.esa.int/nxsa-web/#search
ESASky : https://sky.esa.int/esasky/
HEASARC Browse : http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/db-perl/W3Browse/w3browse.pl

Further details on our XMM-Newton SSC web portal.

06-Feb-2025
XMM-Newton finds two stray supernova remnants
When the European Space Agency’s XMM-Newton pointed its telescope at two unidentified sources of light in the outskirts of the Large Magellanic Cloud, scientists were able to confirm what seemed an unlikely discovery. They found two supernova remnants in the far reaches of our neighbouring galaxy.
The two objects that XMM-Newton looked at are shown as the two circles in the lower left of this visible-light image of the Large Magellanic Cloud. Click on the two circles to make the newly-discovered supernova remnants appear: J0624-6948 (orange, higher in the image) and J0614-7251 (blue, lower in the image). The yellow crosses represent supernova remnants that had been found before.
Further details on esa.int web portal.

31-Jan-2025
Version 22.0 of the Science Analysis System (SAS) released
The XMM-Newton SAS team is pleased to announce the release of a new version of the SAS : SAS v22.0.

Binaries for diverse flavours of Linux and Mac OS X are available at
     https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/xmm-newton/sas-download

The main improvements of this release can be found in the Release Notes:
     https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/xmm-newton/sas-release-notes-2200

This version of SAS is released in three 64-bit binary versions for Linux (Ubuntu 22.04LTS, Ubuntu 24.04LTS and Red HAT 8.10), and two for macOS (13.6.9, Ventura and 14.6.1, Sonoma). A version for Red HAT 9 is intended to be released shortly.

SAS analysis threads have been revised to ensure compatibility with the recently released SAS v22.0. They are available at
     https://www.cosmos.esa.int/web/xmm-newton/sas-threads

Further details on our SAS web portal.

30-Jan-2025
The SOC together with its partners at NASA from the XMM-Newton Guest Observer Facility will be hosting its first virtual Data Analysis Workshop April 1-3, 2025!
This workshop, geared towards new and experienced users of XMM-Newton data, will
(1) highlight the diverse scientific studies that can be enabled by XMM-Newton,
(2) introduce beginners to the Science Analysis Software (SAS) and Extended Source Analysis System (ESAS) as well as the XMM-Newton Science Archive (XSA), and
(3) introduce beginners and experienced users alike to SciServer and Datalabs.
The workshop will be split between presentations and hands-on sessions, distributed over more than 12h duration, to allow participants in Europe as well as the US to attend at convenient times. The goal of the workshop is to improve the accessibility and usability of XMM-Newton data and its data reduction and analysis software, and to introduce the tools created for use with SciServer and Datalabs, which focus on making data reduction more accessible regardless of computing resources and expertise available at a given institution. Registration is open HERE and free of charge. To prepare for the workshop, please register for an ESA Datalabs account and familiarise yourself with the interface: REGISTER HERE. Please use the invitation code “XMM2025” when registering with Datalabs, so your account can be assigned to the workshop.
Further details on the dedicated UMBC web portal.

21-Jan-2025
X-ray observations uncover merger process in a nearby low-mass galaxy cluster
Using NASA's Chandra and ESA's XMM-Newton spacecraft, an international team of astronomers have performed X-ray observations of a nearby low-mass galaxy cluster designated PSZ2 G181.06+48.47. The observational campaign, detailed in a paper published Jan. 13 on the pre-print server arXiv, uncovers essential information regarding the nature and properties of this cluster.[...] With a mass of about 420 trillion solar masses, PSZ2 G181.06+48.47 is a low-mass galaxy cluster at a redshift of 0.24. It has a radius of approximately 3.45 million light years.
Further details on Phys.org web portal.

13-Jan-2025
Unlocking the secrets of the first Quasars: how they defy the laws of Physics to grow
The European Space Agency's XMM-Newton has detected rapidly fluctuating X-rays coming from the very edge of a supermassive black hole in the heart of a nearby galaxy. The results paint a fascinating picture that defies how we thought matter falls into such black holes, and points to a potential source of gravitational waves that ESA’s future mission, LISA, could see. XMM-Newton is showing us that black holes devour matter in more complex ways than astronomers first thought. Black holes are predictions of Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity. They are gravitational monsters that imprison any piece of matter or energy that crosses their ‘surface’, a region of spacetime known as the event horizon.
Further details on ESA.int web portal and Science.nasa.gov web portal.