XMM-Newton News Archive - Year 2017

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11-Dec-2017:
Crescent nebula
A young massive star that began life around 25 times more massive than our own Sun is shedding shells of material and fast winds to create this dynamic scene captured by ESA’s XMM-Newton.

Further details on ESA's Space in Images web portal.

30-Oct-2017:
Surprisingly erratic X-ray auroras discovered at Jupiter
ESA's XMM-Newton and NASA's Chandra X-ray space telescopes have revealed that, unlike Earth's polar lights, the intense auroras seen at Jupiter's poles unexpectedly behave independently of one another.

Further details on ESA's Science & Techonology web portal.

06-Sep-2017:
X-rays reveal temperament of possible planet-hosting stars
A new study using data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and ESA’s XMM-Newton suggests X-rays emitted by a planet’s host star may provide critical clues to how hospitable a star system could be.

Further details on Astronomy Now web pages.

05-Sep-2017:
X-Ray Eyes on a Wolf-Rayet Nebula
As very massive stars evolve off the main sequence, they sometimes lose more than half their initial mass through dense, slow winds. The stars’ hot cores are laid bare, emitting copious ultraviolet photons that ionize the expelled material...

Further details on the AAS Nova portal.

22-Aug-2017:
XMM-Newton 17th Announcement of Opportunity (AO-17)
The XMM-Newton Seventeenth Announcement of Opportunity is now open and observing proposals may be submitted.
The deadline is 6 October 2017, 12:00 UT

Further details here on our XMM-Newton SOC website.

10-Jul-2017:
A Large Fraction of Rapidly-Growing Supermassive Black Holes Evade Census
Highly obscured and rapidly growing supermassive black holes (SMBH), known as active galactic nuclei (AGN), might represent the key phase when SMBH accreted most of their mass and when the relationship between galaxies and their central SMBHs was established.

Further details on ING's web pages.

06-Jun-2017:
XMM-Newton slew tracks
This blue ‘ball of string’ actually records 2114 movements made by ESA’s XMM-Newton space telescope as it shifted its gaze from one X-ray object to another between August 2001 and December 2014.

Further details on ESA's Space in Images pages.

01-Jun-2017:
Professor Giovanni Bignami
It is with great regret that we have learned of the untimely death of Professor Giovanni Bignami. Nanni was a hugely influential figure in the field of high energy astronomy. He was the EPIC-PN Principal Investigator from 1988 to 1997. He also was very interested in outreach and popularisation of astronomy.

15-May-2017:
Sources in XMM-Newton’s second slew catalogue
This colourful, seemingly abstract artwork is actually a map depicting all the celestial objects that were detected in the XMM-Newton slew survey between August 2001 and December 2014.

Further details on ESA's Space in Images pages.

10-May-2017:
IMAGE RELEASE: A New Look at the Crab Nebula
Astronomers produced this dramatic new, highly-detailed image of the Crab Nebula by combining data from telescopes spanning nearly the entire breadth of the electromagnetic spectrum, from the long waves seen by the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) to the extremely short waves seen by the orbiting Chandra X-Ray Observatory.

Further details on the NRAO portal.

01-May-2017:
An Aging Pulsar has Captured a new Companion, and it’s Spinning back up Again
When massive stars reach the end of their life cycle, they explode in a massive supernova and cast off most of their material. What’s left is a “millisecond pulsar”, a super dense, highly-magnetized neutron star that spins rapidly and emit beams of electromagnetic radiation.

Further details on Universe Today pages.

24-Apr-2017:
5000+ XMM-Newton Papers
The XMM-Newton observatory has crossed a major milestone, to date having accumulated 5,000 science papers in the refereed literature.

Further details here on our XMM-Newton SOC portal.

01-Mar-2017:
Rapid changes point to origin of ultra-fast black hole winds
ESA and NASA space telescopes have made the most detailed observation of an ultra-fast wind flowing from the vicinity of a black hole at nearly a quarter of the speed of light.

Further details on ESA's Space Science portal.

21-Feb-2017:
ESA Satellite Spots Brightest Known Pulsar
The European Space Agency’s (ESA) XMM-Newton satellite has detected the brightest and farthest known pulsar --- a whirling, x ray-emitting, magnetized neutron star some 40 million light years away.

Further details on Forbes pages.

21-Feb-2017:
The brightest, furthest pulsar in the Universe
ESA's XMM-Newton has found a pulsar - the spinning remains of a once-massive star – that is a thousand times brighter than previously thought possible.

Further details on ESA's Space Science portal.

06-Feb-2017:
Black Hole Meal Sets Record for Length and Size
A giant black hole ripped apart a star and then gorged on its remains for about a decade, according to astronomers. This is more than ten times longer than any observed episode of a star's death by black hole. Researchers made this discovery using data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and Swift satellite as well as ESA's XMM-Newton.

Further details on NASA's Chandra pages.

31-Jan-2017:
Mind the Gap: Rapid Burster behaviour explained
Scientists observing a curious neutron star in a binary system known as the 'Rapid Burster' may have solved a forty-year-old mystery surrounding its puzzling X-ray bursts.

Further details on ESA's Science & Technology portal.