Launch News NuSTAR atop Pegasus XL, June 13, 2012

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NASA:
NuSTAR Mission Status Report

July 27, 2012

NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) passed its Post-Launch Assessment Review at JPL this week, clearing the way for the mission to enter into its science operations phase in the next month. NuSTAR is currently in the final stages of "Phase C/D," or the design and development phase, which included building and testing the flight hardware, launch and early operations (e.g., spacecraft checkout, mast deployment, instrument commissioning and calibrations). In August, NuSTAR will enter "Phase E," or the operations phase, meaning that it will primarily gather science data.

Since obtaining its first-light images of the galactic black hole Cygnus X-1 on June 28, NuSTAR has been observing bright X-ray sources across the sky as part of the instrument commissioning. Last week, the mission participated in a major international cross-calibration campaign where NuSTAR and NASA's Chandra and Swift telescopes, together with INTEGRAL, Suzaku, and XMM-Newton, observed the quasar 3C 273 in concert. Quasar 3C 273, an extremely bright high-energy source at a distance of 2.4 billion light years, is the first quasar ever to be identified and is the optically brightest quasar in the sky. The coordinated observations of this bright, variable source will allow X-ray satellites to accurately measure their relative sensitivities and to conduct science investigations with joint data sets.

One example of a joint science observation took place between July 21 and 24. NuSTAR observed the supermassive black hole that resides at the center of our own Milky Way galaxy as part of a large, multi-wavelength campaign. This supermassive black hole, our closest example, is known as Sagittarius A* and weighs approximately 4 million times as much as the sun. NuSTAR obtained high-energy X-ray data on Sagittarius A*, complementing coordinated infrared images obtained with the Keck telescopes, low-energy X-ray data obtained with Chandra, and very high-energy gamma-ray data obtained with the High-Energy Stereoscopic System (HESS). These data will monitor the flickering of Sagittarius A* as it grows by accreting matter, thereby teaching astronomers about the extreme environments around black holes and the physics of black hole growth.

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SPACE.com: NASA's Black Hole-Hunting Space Telescope to Begin Science Mission

 

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NASA / NASA JPL:
NuSTAR Celebrates First 100 Days

September 20, 2012

Tomorrow, Sept. 21, 2012, will mark 100 days since NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, launched into space from the L-1011 "Stargazer" aircraft. Since completing its 30-day checkout, the telescope has been busy making its first observations of black holes, super-dense dead stars and the glowing remains of exploded stars.

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NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, celebrates 100 days in orbit on Sept. 21, 2012.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech​

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In this early mission phase, the NuSTAR team has been getting to know their telescope better and learning how to point it precisely at targets of interest. NuSTAR has the longest mast of any astronomical telescope ever launched. The 33-foot (10-meter) flexible structure is part of the mission's innovative design, allowing NuSTAR to focus high-energy X-rays into sharp images for the first time. The team has been spending time understanding the mast's mechanics and how they affect the telescope's pointing.

In addition, NuSTAR has continued to team up with other observatories, including NASA's Chandra and Swift telescopes, to make coordinated observations. These joint observations allow astronomers to interpret data from their telescopes more precisely, and to gain a better overall understanding of some of the most extreme events in the cosmos.

As its journey continues, NuSTAR will explore many more targets in our galaxy and beyond.

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NASA / NASA JPL:
NASA's NuSTAR Spots Flare From Milky Way's Black Hole

October 23, 2012

PASADENA, Calif. - NASA's newest set of X-ray eyes in the sky, the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR), has caught its first look at the giant black hole parked at the center of our galaxy. The observations show the typically mild-mannered black hole during the middle of a flare-up.

"We got lucky to have captured an outburst from the black hole during our observing campaign," said Fiona Harrison, the mission's principal investigator at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena. "These data will help us better understand the gentle giant at the heart of our galaxy and why it sometimes flares up for a few hours and then returns to slumber."

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NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, has captured these first, focused views of the supermassive black hole at the heart of our galaxy in high-energy X-ray light.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech​

|These are the first, focused high-energy X-ray views of the area surrounding the supermassive black hole, called Sagittarius A*, at the center of our galaxy.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech​

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The new images can be seen by visiting: http://www.nasa.gov/nustar.

NuSTAR, launched June 13, is the only telescope capable of producing focused images of the highest-energy X-rays. For two days in July, the telescope teamed up with other observatories to observe Sagittarius A* (pronounced Sagittarius A-star and abbreviated Sgr A*), the name astronomers give to a compact radio source at the center of the Milky Way. Observations show a massive black hole lies at this location. Participating telescopes included NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, which sees lower-energy X-ray light; and the W.M. Keck Observatory atop Mauna Kea in Hawaii, which took infrared images.

Compared to giant black holes at the centers of other galaxies, Sgr A* is relatively quiet. Active black holes tend to gobble up stars and other fuel around them. Sgr A* is thought only to nibble or not eat at all, a process that is not fully understood. When black holes consume fuel -- whether a star, a gas cloud or, as recent Chandra observations have suggested, even an asteroid -- they erupt with extra energy.

In the case of NuSTAR, its state-of-the-art telescope is picking up X-rays emitted by consumed matter being heated up to about 180 million degrees Fahrenheit (100 million degrees Celsius) and originating from regions where particles are boosted very close to the speed of light. Astronomers say these NuSTAR data, when combined with the simultaneous observations taken at other wavelengths, will help them better understand the physics of how black holes snack and grow in size.

"Astronomers have long speculated that the black hole's snacking should produce copious hard X-rays, but NuSTAR is the first telescope with sufficient sensitivity to actually detect them," said NuSTAR team member Chuck Hailey of Columbia University in New York City.

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Science Daily: NASA's NuSTAR Spots Flare from Milky Way's Black Hole

Discover Magazine - Bad Astronomy: NuSTAR catches a black hole’s hot belch

Discovery News: Surprise! NuSTAR Spots Galaxy's Black Hole Flash

 

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[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LL-OvCnn53c"]ScienceCasts: The Diner at the Center of the Galaxy - YouTube[/ame]

 

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NASA / NASA JPL:
NASA's NuSTAR Catches Black Holes in Galaxy Web

January 07, 2013

PASADENA, Calif. - NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, set its X-ray eyes on a spiral galaxy and caught the brilliant glow of two black holes lurking inside.

The new image is being released Monday along with NuSTAR's view of the supernova remnant Cassiopeia A, at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Long Beach, Calif.

"These new images showcase why NuSTAR is giving us an unprecedented look at the cosmos," said Lou Kaluzienski, NuSTAR program scientist at NASA headquarters in Washington. "With NuSTAR's greater sensitivity and imaging capability, we're getting a wealth of new information on a wide array of cosmic phenomena in the high-energy X-ray portion of the electromagnetic spectrum."

Launched last June, NuSTAR is the first orbiting telescope with the ability to focus high-energy X-ray light. It can view objects in considerably greater detail than previous missions operating at similar wavelengths. Since launch, the NuSTAR team has been fine-tuning the telescope, which includes a mast the length of a school bus connecting the mirrors and detectors.

The mission has looked at a range of extreme, high-energy objects already, including black holes near and far, and the incredibly dense cores of dead stars. In addition, NuSTAR has begun black hole searches in the inner region of the Milky Way galaxy and in distant galaxies in the universe.

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This new view of spiral galaxy IC 342, also known as Caldwell 5, includes data from NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR. High-energy X-ray data from NuSTAR have been translated to the color magenta, and superimposed on a visible-light view highlighting the galaxy and its star-studded arms. NuSTAR is the first orbiting telescope to take focused pictures of the cosmos in high-energy X-ray light; previous observations of this same galaxy taken at similar wavelengths blurred the entire object into one pixel.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/DSS​

|This new view of the historical supernova remnant Cassiopeia A, located 11,000 light-years away, was taken by NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR. Blue indicates the highest energy X-ray light, where NuSTAR has made the first resolved image ever of this source. Red and green show the lower end of NuSTAR's energy range, which overlaps with NASA's high-resolution Chandra X-ray Observatory.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/DSS​

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Among the telescope's targets is the spiral galaxy IC342, also known as Caldwell 5, featured in one of the two new images. This galaxy lies 7 million light-years away in the constellation Camelopardalis (the Giraffe). Previous X-ray observations of the galaxy from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory revealed the presence of two blinding black holes, called ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs).

How ULXs can shine so brilliantly is an ongoing mystery in astronomy. While these black holes are not as powerful as the supermassive black hole at the hearts of galaxies, they are more than 10 times brighter than the stellar-mass black holes peppered among the stars in our own galaxy. Astronomers think ULXs could be less common intermediate-mass black holes, with a few thousand times the mass of our sun, or smaller stellar-mass black holes in an unusually bright state. A third possibility is that these black holes don't fit neatly into either category.

"High-energy X-rays hold a key to unlocking the mystery surrounding these objects," said Fiona Harrison, NuSTAR principal investigator at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. "Whether they are massive black holes, or there is new physics in how they feed, the answer is going to be fascinating."

In the image, the two bright spots that appear entangled in the arms of the IC342 galaxy are the black holes. High-energy X-ray light has been translated into the color magenta, while the galaxy itself is shown in visible light.

"Before NuSTAR, high-energy X-ray pictures of this galaxy and the two black holes would be so fuzzy that everything would appear as one pixel," said Harrison.

The second image features the well-known, historical supernova remnant Cassiopeia A, located 11,000 light-years away in the constellation Cassiopeia. The color blue indicates the highest-energy X-ray light seen by NuSTAR, while red and green signify the lower end of NuSTAR's energy range. The blue region is where the shock wave from the supernova blast is slamming into material surrounding it, accelerating particles to nearly the speed of light. As the particles speed up, they give off a type of light known as synchrotron radiation. NuSTAR will be able to determine for the first time how energetic the particles are, and address the mystery of what causes them to reach such great speeds.

"Cas A is the poster child for studying how massive stars explode and also provides us a clue to the origin of the high-energy particles, or cosmic rays, that we see here on Earth," said Brian Grefenstette of Caltech, a lead researcher on the observations. "With NuSTAR, we can study where, as well as how, particles are accelerated to such ultra-relativistic energies in the remnant left behind by the supernova explosion."

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NASA:
Good Progress With NuSTAR Science Goals

Feb. 21, 2013

Mission Update

NuSTAR has been in orbit around Earth for more than eight months since its launch in June 2013, studying black holes and probing the nature of the high-energy X-ray universe. Mission and science operations have settled down into a mostly predictable daily routine, and the science team is making good progress toward achieving the primary, or "Level 1," science goals. Examples of some of the key NuSTAR observations performed to date include mapping of the central regions of our Milky Way galaxy, studying the remnants of exploded stars in our galaxy, and surveys of several well-studied extragalactic fields.

The science team spent many days preparing for the special session highlighting early NuSTAR results at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Long Beach, Calif., on January 8th. Five overview talks were presented to a standing-room-only audience of excited astrophysicists. Principal Investigator Fiona Harrison (Caltech) also participated in a press conference the previous day, unveiling two new NuSTAR images (see http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/nustar/news/nustar20130107.html ).

The mission is producing images that are 100 times more sensitive than those of any previous astronomical satellite working in the high-energy X-ray regime, providing new insight into previously poorly studied high-energy phenomena. Harrison fielded many questions from the media, and the NuSTAR image release was reported by several well-known news organizations around the world. For example, the Los Angeles Times article is online at http://www.latimes.com/news/science...-telescope-20130107,0,2452596.story?track=rss .

Looking ahead, more than 20 papers are being prepared based on NuSTAR data, with topics ranging from a bright flare of the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy to studies of similar black holes in distant galaxies. The NuSTAR science team will be getting together for the first time since launch in mid-March at Caltech in Pasadena. Team members from all over the world will meet in person to discuss the latest data, finalize papers for submission, review calibration models of the observatory's instrumentation, and plan future NuSTAR observations.

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NASA / NASA JPL:
NASA's NuSTAR Helps Solve Riddle of Black Hole Spin

February 27, 2013

PASADENA, Calif. -- Two X-ray space observatories, NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) and the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton, have teamed up to measure definitively, for the first time, the spin rate of a black hole with a mass 2 million times that of our sun.

The supermassive black hole lies at the dust- and gas-filled heart of a galaxy called NGC 1365, and it is spinning almost as fast as Einstein's theory of gravity will allow. The findings, which appear in a new study in the journal Nature, resolve a long-standing debate about similar measurements in other black holes and will lead to a better understanding of how black holes and galaxies evolve.

"This is hugely important to the field of black hole science," said Lou Kaluzienski, a NuSTAR program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

The observations also are a powerful test of Einstein's theory of general relativity, which says gravity can bend space-time, the fabric that shapes our universe, and the light that travels through it.

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Black Holes: Monsters in Space​

This artist's concept illustrates a supermassive black hole with millions to billions times the mass of our sun. Supermassive black holes are enormously dense objects buried at the hearts of galaxies.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech​

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How to Measure the Spin of a Black Hole​

Black holes are tremendous objects whose immense gravity can distort and twist space-time, the fabric that shapes our universe.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech​

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Two Models of Black Hole Spin​

Scientists measure the spin rates of supermassive black holes by spreading the X-ray light into different colors.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech​

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Complementary X-Ray Vision​

This chart depicts the electromagnetic spectrum, highlighting the X-ray portion.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech​

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NuSTAR's Improved View​

This image taken by the ultraviolet-light monitoring camera on the European Space Agency's (ESA's) XMM-Newton telescope shows the beautiful spiral arms of the galaxy NGC1365.

Image credit: ESA​

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Two X-Ray Observatories are Better Than One​

NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, has helped to show, for the first time, that the spin rates of black holes can be measured conclusively.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ESA/CfA/INAF​

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"We can trace matter as it swirls into a black hole using X-rays emitted from regions very close to the black hole," said the coauthor of a new study, NuSTAR principal investigator Fiona Harrison of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. "The radiation we see is warped and distorted by the motions of particles and the black hole's incredibly strong gravity."

NuSTAR, an Explorer-class mission launched in June 2012, is designed to detect the highest-energy X-ray light in great detail. It complements telescopes that observe lower-energy X-ray light, such as XMM-Newton and NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. Scientists use these and other telescopes to estimate the rates at which black holes spin.

Until now, these measurements were not certain because clouds of gas could have been obscuring the black holes and confusing the results. With help from XMM-Newton, NuSTAR was able to see a broader range of X-ray energies and penetrate deeper into the region around the black hole. The new data demonstrate that X-rays are not being warped by the clouds, but by the tremendous gravity of the black hole. This proves that spin rates of supermassive black holes can be determined conclusively.

"If I could have added one instrument to XMM-Newton, it would have been a telescope like NuSTAR," said Norbert Schartel, XMM-Newton Project Scientist at the European Space Astronomy Center in Madrid. "The high-energy X-rays provided an essential missing puzzle piece for solving this problem."

Measuring the spin of a supermassive black hole is fundamental to understanding its past history and that of its host galaxy.

"These monsters, with masses from millions to billions of times that of the sun, are formed as small seeds in the early universe and grow by swallowing stars and gas in their host galaxies, merging with other giant black holes when galaxies collide, or both," said the study's lead author, Guido Risaliti of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass., and the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics.

Supermassive black holes are surrounded by pancake-like accretion disks, formed as their gravity pulls matter inward. Einstein's theory predicts the faster a black hole spins, the closer the accretion disk lies to the black hole. The closer the accretion disk is, the more gravity from the black hole will warp X-ray light streaming off the disk.

Astronomers look for these warping effects by analyzing X-ray light emitted by iron circulating in the accretion disk. In the new study, they used both XMM-Newton and NuSTAR to simultaneously observe the black hole in NGC 1365. While XMM-Newton revealed that light from the iron was being warped, NuSTAR proved that this distortion was coming from the gravity of the black hole and not gas clouds in the vicinity. NuSTAR's higher-energy X-ray data showed that the iron was so close to the black hole that its gravity must be causing the warping effects.

With the possibility of obscuring clouds ruled out, scientists can now use the distortions in the iron signature to measure the black hole's spin rate. The findings apply to several other black holes as well, removing the uncertainty in the previously measured spin rates.

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VideoFromSpace:

NASA News Release: RELEASE : 13-063 - NASA'S NuSTAR Helps Solve Riddle of Black Hole Spin

ESA: Speedy black hole holds galaxy's history

SPACE.com: Monster Black Hole's Spin Revealed for 1st Time

CBS News Space: X-ray telescopes measure black hole rotation, space distortion

Universe Today: NuSTAR Puts New Spin On Supermassive Black Holes

Slate - Bad Astronomy: Superfast Spinning Black Hole Tearing Up Space at Nearly the Speed of Light

SpaceRef: NuSTAR Helps Solve Riddle of Black Hole Spin

EurekAlert:

• Supermassive black hole spins super-fast
  
  
• NuSTAR helps solve riddle of black hole spin

Science Daily: NASA's NuSTAR Helps Solve Riddle of Black Hole Spin

 

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NuSTAR has been searching for proposed intermediate mass black holes lately.

JPL: "Do Black Holes Come in Size Medium?"

Evidence for medium-sized black holes lying somewhere between these two extremes might come from objects called ultraluminous X-ray sources, or ULXs. These are pairs of objects in which a black hole ravenously feeds off a normal star. The feeding process is somewhat similar to what happens around supermassive black holes, but isn't as big and messy. In addition, ULXs are located throughout galaxies, not at the cores.

The bright glow of X-rays coming from ULXs is too great to be the product of typical small black holes. This and other evidence indicates the objects may be intermediate in mass, with 100 to 10,000 times the mass of our sun. Alternatively, an explanation may lie in some kind of exotic phenomenon involving extreme accretion, or "feeding," of a black hole.

NuSTAR is joining with other telescopes to take a closer look at ULXs. It's providing the first look at these objects in focused, high-energy X-rays, helping to get better estimates of their masses and other characteristics.
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JPL: "NASA's NuSTAR Untangles Mystery of How Stars Explode"

One of the biggest mysteries in astronomy, how stars blow up in supernova explosions, finally is being unraveled with the help of NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR).

The high-energy X-ray observatory has created the first map of radioactive material in a supernova remnant. The results, from a remnant named Cassiopeia A (Cas A), reveal how shock waves likely rip apart massive dying stars.

"Stars are spherical balls of gas, and so you might think that when they end their lives and explode, that explosion would look like a uniform ball expanding out with great power," said Fiona Harrison, the principal investigator of NuSTAR at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena. "Our new results show how the explosion's heart, or engine, is distorted, possibly because the inner regions literally slosh around before detonating."

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Universe Today: "Stars Boil Before They Blow Up, Says NuSTAR"