XMM-Newton News Archive - Year 2020
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10-Dec-2020
21 years of XMM-Newton celebrated with a new catalogue and an ambitious citizen science project
On the 21st anniversary of the launch of the European Space Agency’s X-ray observatory, XMM-Newton, the XMM-Newton Survey Science Centre (XMM-SSC) are releasing a new catalogue, 4XMM-DR10...
Further details on IRAP web portal.
08-Dec-2020
Astronomers Discover the Second Stellar Tidal Disruption Event Caused by Supermassive Black Hole Binary
Using data from NASA's Swift and ESA's XMM-Newton satellites, a team of Chinese researchers found new evidence for the existence of two close supermassive black holes (SMBH) in the center of a normal galaxy.
Further details on Chinese Academy of Sciences web portal.
18-Nov-2020
Odd X-ray flares from a SMBH pair tearing star
Using data from NASA's Swift and ESA's XMM-Newton satellites, a team of Chinese researchers...found new evidence for the existence of two close supermassive black holes(SMBH)...They were discovered because they ripped apart a star, producing flaring X-ray emission, and these X-rays were seen by Swift and XMM-Newton.
Further details on NAOC web portal.
12-Nov-2020
Cosmic furnace seen by XMM-Newton
This burst of colour shows a fascinating discovery: a galaxy cluster acting as a cosmic furnace...XMM-Newton detected the cluster via the international XXL survey, which is exploring two large areas of space outside our galaxy.
Further details on ESAS's Science & Exploration portal.
14-Oct-2020
The Recipe for Powerful Quasar Jets
Some supermassive black holes launch powerful beams of material, or jets, away from them, while others do not. Astronomers may now have identified why. Using data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, ESA's XMM-Newton...
Further details onChandra X-Ray Observatory web portal.
29-Sep-2020
Astronomers Take a Closer Look at the Centers of Galaxies
Study sheds light on how matter around the vicinity of supermassive black holes is distributed.Using ESA's XMM-Newton, NASA’s Chandra, and JAXA’s Suzaku telescopes, the researchers found three distinct regions where the X-rays get absorbed by matter.
Further details on UC SanDiego web portal.
15-Sep-2020
NuSTAR and XMM-Newton observe a dusty shroud sparkling in X-rays
NASA’s NuSTAR and ESA’s XMM-Newton satellites have observed a young, massive star in close orbit with the compact remnant from a collapsed star, thereby studying how massive stars evolve and interact.
Further details on the NuSTAR website.
18-Aug-2020
XMM-Newton 20th Announcement of Opportunity (AO-20)
The XMM-Newton Twentieth Announcement of Opportunity is now open and observing proposals may be submitted.
The deadline is 9 October 2020, 12:00 UT
Further details here on our XMM-Newton SOC website.
16-Jul-2020
Runaway Star Might Explain Black Hole's Disappearing Act
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.
Further details on NASA's web portal.
17-Jun-2020
XMM-Newton spies youngest baby pulsar ever discovered
An observation campaign led by ESA’s XMM-Newton space observatory reveals the youngest pulsar ever seen – the remnant of a once-massive star – that is also a ‘magnetar’, sporting a magnetic field some 70 quadrillion times stronger than that of Earth.
Further details on ESAS's Science & Exploration portal.
10-Jun-2020
Black hole’s heart still beating
The first confirmed heartbeat of a supermassive black hole is still going strong more than ten years after first being observed. X-ray satellite observations spotted the repeated be at after its signal had been blocked by our Sun for a number of years. Our astronomers say this is the most long lived heartbeat ever seen in a black hole...
Further details on Durham University web portal.
10-Jun-2020
Scientists detect heartbeat of super massive black hole 600 million light years away
Scientists have confirmed that the heartbeat of a super massive black hole is still going strong after ten years. Astronomers say this is the longest living heartbeat ever seen in a black hole, and that it can help to tell scientists more about its size and the space around it.
Further details on BBC web portal .
27-May-2020
Andrew Fabian
The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters has decided to award the Kavli Prize in Astrophysics for 2020 to Andrew Fabian “for his groundbreaking research in the field of observational X-ray astronomy, covering a wide range of topics from gas flows in clusters of galaxies to supermassive black holes at the heart of galaxies.”
Further details on the Kavli Prize portal.
11-May-2020
A bent bridge between two galaxy clusters
A new study, based on data from ESA’s XMM-Newton and NASA’s Chandra X-ray observatories, sheds new light on a three million light-year long bridge of hot gas linking two galaxy clusters, whose shape is being bent by the mighty activity of a nearby supermassive black hole.
Further details on ESAS's Science & Exploration portal.
23-Apr-2020
Star Survives Close Call with a Black Hole
Astronomers may have discovered a new kind of survival story: a star that had a brush with a giant black hole and lived to tell the tale through exclamations of X-ray.Data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and ESA’s XMM-Newton uncovered the account that began with a red giant star wandering too close to a supermassive black hole...
Further details on NASA's web portal.
08-Apr-2020
Rethinking cosmology: Universe expansion may not be uniform
Astronomers have assumed for decades that the Universe is expanding at the same rate in all directions. A new study based on data from ESA’s XMM-Newton, NASA’s Chandra and the German-led ROSAT X-ray observatories suggests this key premise of cosmology might be wrong.
Further details on ESAS's Science & Exploration portal.
27-Feb-2020
The most powerful black hole eruption in the Universe
Astronomers using ESA’s XMM-Newton and NASA’s Chandra X-ray space observatories, along with radio telescopes on ground, have spotted the aftermath of the most powerful explosion ever seen in the Universe.
Further details on ESAS's Science & Exploration portal.
20-Feb-2020
XMM-Newton reveals giant flare from a tiny star
A star of about eight percent the Sun’s mass has been caught emitting an enormous 'super flare' of X-rays – a dramatic high-energy eruption that poses a fundamental problem for astronomers, who did not think it possible on stars that small.
Further details on ESAS's Science & Exploration portal.
20-Jan-2020
XMM-Newton maps black hole surroundings
Material falling into a black hole casts X-rays out into space - and now, for the first time, ESA's XMM-Newton X-ray observatory has used the reverberating echoes of this radiation to map the dynamic behaviour and surroundings of a black hole itself.
Further details on ESAS's Science & Exploration portal.
16-Jan-2020
Xmm-newton discovers scorching gas in in milky way's halo
ESA's XMM-Newton has discovered that gas lurking within the Milky Way's halo reaches far hotter temperatures than previously thought and has a different chemical make-up than predicted, challenging our understanding of our galactic home.
Further details on ESAS's Science &Technology portal.
10-Jan-2020
First sighting of hot gas sloshing in galaxy cluster
ESA's XMM-Newton X-ray observatory has spied hot gas sloshing around within a galaxy cluster - a never-before-seen behaviour that may be driven by turbulent merger events.
Further details on ESAS's Science & Exploration portal.
