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| Black hole-star pair orbiting at dizzying speed |
| ESA's XMM-Newton space telescope has helped to identify a star and a black hole that orbit each other at the dizzying rate of once every 2.4 hours, smashing the previous record by nearly an hour. |
| Date: 19 Mar 2013 |
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| Speedy black hole holds galaxy's history |
| A rapidly rotating supermassive black hole has been found in the heart of a spiral galaxy by ESA's XMM-Newton and NASA's NuSTAR space observatories, opening a new window into how galaxies grow. |
| Date: 27 Feb 2013 |
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| Massive stellar winds are made of tiny pieces |
| ESA's XMM-Newton space observatory has completed the most detailed study ever of the fierce wind from a giant star, showing for the first time that it is not a uniform breeze but is fragmented into hundreds of thousands of pieces. |
| Date: 05 Feb 2013 |
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| Baffling pulsar leaves astronomers in the dark |
| New observations of a highly variable pulsar using ESA's XMM-Newton are perplexing astronomers. Monitoring this pulsar simultaneously in X-rays and radio waves, astronomers have revealed that this source, whose radio emission is known to 'switch on and off' periodically, exhibits the same behaviour, but in reverse, when observed at X-ray wavelengths. It is the first time that a switching X-ray emission has been detected from a pulsar, and the properties of this emission are unexpectedly puzzling. As no current model is able to explain this switching behaviour, which occurs within only a few seconds, these observations have reopened the debate about the physical mechanisms powering the emission from pulsars. |
| Date: 24 Jan 2013 |
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| Greedy black hole discovered in Andromeda |
| Studying the Andromeda galaxy with ESA's XMM-Newton X-ray space observatory, astronomers have discovered a new bright X-ray source that hosts a stellar-mass black hole accreting mass at a very high rate. The source's location in an external galaxy allowed the astronomers to probe the emission both from the black hole's accretion disc, at X-ray wavelengths, and from its jets, in radio waves. These observations revealed, for the first time in an extragalactic stellar-mass black hole, the link between the source's X-ray brightening and the ejection of radio-bright material from the vicinity of the black hole into the jets, indicating an accretion rate close to the black hole's Eddington limit, or even above it. |
| Date: 12 Dec 2012 |
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| Astronomers develop new method to determine neutron star mass |
| Astronomers have used INTEGRAL and XMM-Newton to look into the neutron star in IGR J17252-3616, a highly obscured X-ray binary system. The data show how the neutron star, which is being fuelled by the stellar wind from its companion, is substantially deflecting the flow of the accreted material. Comparison with numerical simulations provides an estimate of the neutron star's mass, suggesting a new method to determine the mass of these extremely dense, exotic objects. |
| Date: 09 Nov 2012 |
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| X-raying colliding stellar winds |
| Ground- and space-based observations, including studies by ESA's XMM-Newton X-ray observatory, have provided unique insights into a star system dominated by two Galactic giants. |
| Date: 12 Oct 2012 |
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| XMM-Newton Announcement of Opportunity (AO-12) |
| Proposals are solicited for observations with XMM-Newton in response to the twelfth Announcement of Opportunity, AO-12, issued 21 August 2012. This AO covers the period May 2013 to April 2014 and is open to proposers from all over the world. |
| Date: 21 Aug 2012 |
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| Final cry of disrupted star points to site of oblivion |
| Astronomers have detected tell-tale luminosity fluctuations in the X-ray signal from a star that was torn apart and devoured by the supermassive black hole at the centre of a distant galaxy. The fluctuations, which have a period of 200 seconds, originate from the innermost stable orbit around the black hole and represent the last signal sent by the debris of the disrupted star before disappearing beyond the black hole's event horizon. The discovery, based on data from ESA's XMM-Newton and the Japan/US Suzaku space observatories, has allowed astronomers to probe the details of matter accretion onto a supermassive black hole in the distant Universe for the first time. |
| Date: 03 Aug 2012 |
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| X-raying the beating heart of a newborn star |
| An international team of scientists has used the world's most powerful X-ray observatories - including ESA's XMM-Newton orbiter - to probe the dusty surroundings of a newborn star and discover some of its innermost secrets. These findings shed new light on one of the most fundamental processes in the Universe, the creation of stars. |
| Date: 03 Jul 2012 |
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| XMM-Newton reveals light 'echo' around supermassive black hole |
| Astronomers studying the galaxy NGC 4151 with ESA's XMM-Newton space observatory have detected X-rays emitted and then reflected by ionised iron atoms very close to the supermassive black hole hosted at the galaxy's core. By measuring the time delays occurring in these 'reverberation' events, they were able to map the vicinity of this black hole in unprecedented detail. |
| Date: 31 May 2012 |
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| XMM-Newton measures the power of black-hole driven outflows in galaxies |
| Astronomers using ESA's XMM-Newton X-ray Observatory have discovered that ultra-fast outflows are quite common in active galaxies. About 40 per cent of the sources in their sample show outflows that arise from the vicinity of the central black holes. By estimating the mass and energy released by the outflows, the astronomers have identified them as major agents in the feedback processes required by models of galactic evolution to explain the observed correlation between the mass of black holes and the stellar content of their host galaxies. |
| Date: 27 Feb 2012 |
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| Strangely slow pulsar discovered nestled in young supernova remnant |
| Astronomers have discovered a very slowly rotating X-ray pulsar still embedded in the remnant of the supernova that created it. This unusual object was detected on the outskirts of the Small Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way, using data from a number of telescopes, including ESA's XMM-Newton. A puzzling mismatch between the fairly young age of the supernova remnant and the slow rotation of the pulsar, which would normally indicate a much older object, raises interesting questions about the origin and evolution of pulsars. |
| Date: 20 Dec 2011 |
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| XMM-Newton Announcement of Opportunity (AO-11) |
| Proposals are solicited for observations with XMM-Newton in response to the eleventh Announcement of Opportunity, AO-11, issued 23 August 2011. This AO covers the period May 2012 to April 2013 and is open to proposers from all over the world. |
| Date: 23 Aug 2011 |
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| Neutron star caught feasting on clump of stellar matter |
| With a stroke of luck, astronomers using ESA's XMM-Newton X-ray observatory have observed a neutron star in a peculiar X-ray binary system undergoing an extremely rare, intense flare. This outburst of X-rays, which lasted about four hours, was due to a sudden increase in the rate at which the neutron star was accreting matter from its companion, a blue supergiant star. By monitoring this phenomenon in unprecedented detail, the data provide the first, substantive evidence to explain such luminosity variations in this type of binary system; the flare appears to be due to the ingestion of a massive clump of matter by the neutron star. |
| Date: 28 Jun 2011 |
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| An old galaxy cluster discovered in the young Universe |
| Astronomers working with data from several observatories, including ESA's XMM-Newton, have discovered the most distant, mature galaxy cluster yet. The cluster is seen as it was when the Universe was only about a quarter of its current age. In contrast to other structures observed in the young Universe, this object is already in its prime, as is evident from its diffuse X-ray emission and evolved population of galaxies. This shows that fully-grown galaxy clusters were already in place this early in cosmic history. |
| Date: 09 Mar 2011 |
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| Andromeda's once and future stars |
| Two ESA observatories have combined forces to show the Andromeda Galaxy in a new light. Herschel sees rings of star formation in this, the most detailed image of the Andromeda Galaxy ever taken at infrared wavelengths, and XMM-Newton shows dying stars shining X-rays into space. |
| Date: 05 Jan 2011 |
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| Andromeda's once and future stars |
| Two ESA observatories have combined forces to show the Andromeda Galaxy in a new light. Herschel sees rings of star formation in this, the most detailed image of the Andromeda Galaxy ever taken at infrared wavelengths, and XMM-Newton shows dying stars shining X-rays into space. |
| Date: 05 Jan 2011 |
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| Europe maintains its presence on the final frontier |
| ESA has decided to extend the productive lives of 11 of its operating space science missions. This will enable ESA's world-class science missions to continue returning pioneering results until at least 2014. |
| Date: 22 Nov 2010 |
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| New evidence for supernova-driven galactic fountains in the Milky Way |
| Observing the X-ray-bright gas in the halo of the Milky Way, ESA's XMM-Newton has gathered new data which favour a process involving fountains of hot gas in our Galaxy. Such a scenario, with the gas flowing from the galactic disc into the halo where it then condenses into cooler clouds and subsequently falls back to the disc, confirms the importance of supernova explosions in forging the evolution of the interstellar medium and of the entire Galaxy. |
| Date: 19 Nov 2010 |
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