Marshall Astrophysics - Australia News Beep

An artist's concept of a supermassive black hole, a surrounding disk of material falling towards the black hole and a jet containing particles moving away at close to the speed of light. This black hole represents a recently-discovered quasar powered by a black hole. New Chandra observations indicate that the black hole is growing at a rate that exceeds the usual limit for black holes, called the Eddington Limit. Credit: NASA/CXC/SAO/M. Weiss

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NASA’s Chandra Finds Black Hole With Tremendous Growth

September 18, 2025

A black hole is growing at one of the fastest rates ever recorded, according to a team of…

Near the center of these images lies the pulsar B1509-58, a rapidly spinning neutron star that is only about 12 miles in diameter. This tiny object is responsible for producing an intricate nebula (called MSH 15-52) that spans over 150 light-years, or about 900 trillion miles. The nebula, which is produced by energetic particles, resembles a human hand with a palm and extended fingers pointing to the upper right in a view from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. Radio data from the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) provides new information about this exploded star and its environment. This image also contains optical data of hydrogen gas. The bright red and gold areas near the top of the image show the remains of the supernova that formed the pulsar.

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X-ray and Radio go ‘Hand in Hand’ in New Image

August 20, 2025

In 2009, NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory released a captivating image: a pulsar and its surrounding nebula that is…

An illustration of a black hole with a dark circle surrounded by light discs.

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NASA IXPE’s ‘Heartbeat Black Hole’ Measurements Challenge Current Theories

August 13, 2025

Written by Michael Allen An international team of astronomers using NASA’s IXPE (Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer), has challenged…