NuSTAR Bringing the High Energy Universe into Focus

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Calla Cofield
Media Relations Specialist
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Calla.e.cofield@jpl.nasa.gov
(818) 393-1821

showing 25 of 142 records on page 1 of 2

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NuSTAR Paper Models at the Summer Skies Event

Feature Story • July 26, 2018

On Thursday, July 26th, the Hudson River Museum was at Cross County Shopping Center, putting on a series of science projects as part of SummerFest on the Cross County Green. During the “Summer Skies” event, visitors participated in demonstrations and projects and created items to take home. They explored gravity and light, and made of a model of the NuSTAR space telescope.

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How Strong are Black Holes Really?

Feature Story • December 7, 2017

Black holes are famous for their muscle: an intense gravitational pull known to gobble up entire stars and launch streams of matter into space at almost the speed of light. It turns out the reality may not live up to the hype. University of Florida scientists have discovered these tears in the fabric of the universe have significantly weaker magnetic fields than previously thought.

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NuSTAR to Observe Solar Eclipse

Feature Story • August 17, 2017

On August 21, for about two minutes across a swath of North America, Earth's moon will pass in front of and completely block out the sun, causing a total solar eclipse. Countless people are expected to witness this rare phenomenon, the first total solar eclipse in North America in 38 years. Just this week, scientists at Caltech and JPL decided that a small space telescope will be watching with them.

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NuSTAR's First Five Years in Space

Feature Story • June 13, 2017

To celebrate the fifth anniversary of NASA's NuSTAR space mission, the mission's lead scientist, Fiona Harrison of Caltech, talks about some of her favorite images.

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Young Magnetar Likely the Slowest Pulsar Ever Detected

Feature Story • September 8, 2016

Using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and other X-ray observatories, astronomers have found evidence for what is likely one of the most extreme pulsars, or rotating neutron stars, ever detected. The source exhibits properties of a highly magnetized neutron star, or magnetar, yet its deduced spin period is thousands of times longer than any pulsar ever observed.

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NuSTAR Principal Investigator Honored for Research

Feature Story • August 8, 2016

Fiona Harrison, principal investigator of NASA's NuSTAR mission, has been selected to receive the 2016 Massey Award, given by the Committee on Space Research. The Massey Award honors "outstanding contributions to the development of space research in which a leadership role is of particular importance" and honors the memory of Sir Harrie Massey.

Chorus of Black Holes Sings in X-Rays

Feature Story • July 28, 2016

Supermassive black holes in the universe are like a raucous choir singing in the language of X-rays. When black holes pull in surrounding matter, they let out powerful X-ray bursts. This song of X-rays, coming from a chorus of millions of black holes, fills the entire sky -- a phenomenon astronomers call the cosmic X-ray background.

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Black Hole Makes Material Wobble Around It

Feature Story • July 12, 2016

The European Space Agency's orbiting X-ray observatory, XMM-Newton, has proved the existence of a "gravitational vortex" around a black hole. The discovery, aided by NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) mission, solves a mystery that has eluded astronomers for more than 30 years, and will allow them to map the behavior of matter very close to black holes. It could also open the door to future investigations of Albert Einstein's general relativity.

Where a Neutron Star’s Accretion Disk Ends

Feature Story • March 16, 2016

Using observations made by X-ray space observatories NuSTAR and Swift/XRT, a team of scientists led by Ashley King (Einstein Fellow at Stanford University) has managed to measure the location of the inner edge of the disk in Aquila X-1, a neutron-star X-ray binary located 17,000 light-years away.

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2016 Outstanding Faculty Award Recipient

Feature Story • January 22, 2016

Dr. Lynn R. Cominsky, Professor and Chair of the Department of Physics and Astronomy, joined the faculty at Sonoma State University in 1986 and became chair of the Physics and Astronomy Department in 2004. She also founded Sonoma State’s Education and Public Outreach group in 1999. Previously, she worked with the University of California, Berkeley Space Sciences Laboratory and NASA’s Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer Satellite Project. Dr. Cominsky earned her PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and her BA from Brandeis University.

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Fiona Harrison Awarded High-Energy Astrophysics Prize

Feature Story • January 16, 2016

The 2015 Rossi Prize has been awarded to Fiona Harrison, the Benjamin M. Rosen Professor of Physics at Caltech, for her "groundbreaking work on supernova remnants, neutron stars, and black holes enabled by NuSTAR." The award is the top prize in high-energy astrophysics.

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Andromeda Galaxy Scanned with High-Energy X-ray Vision

Feature Story • January 5, 2016

NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, has captured the best high-energy X-ray view yet of a portion of our nearest large, neighboring galaxy, Andromeda. The space mission has observed 40 "X-ray binaries" -- intense sources of X-rays comprised of a black hole or neutron star that feeds off a stellar companion.

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NuSTAR Finds Cosmic Clumpy Doughnut Around Black Hole

Feature Story • December 17, 2015

The most massive black holes in the universe are often encircled by thick, doughnut-shaped disks of gas and dust. This deep-space doughnut material ultimately feeds and nourishes the growing black holes tucked inside.

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Black Hole Has Major Flare

Feature Story • October 26, 2015

The baffling and strange behaviors of black holes have become somewhat less mysterious recently, with new observations from NASA's Explorer missions Swift and the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR. The two space telescopes caught a supermassive black hole in the midst of a giant eruption of X-ray light, helping astronomers address an ongoing puzzle: How do supermassive black holes flare?

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Searing Sun Seen in X-rays

Feature Story • July 8, 2015

X-rays light up the surface of our sun in a bouquet of colors in this new image containing data from NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR.

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NuSTAR Stares Deep into Hidden Lairs of Black Holes

Feature Story • July 6, 2015

Some of the "biggest and baddest" black holes around are buried under thick blankets of gas and dust. These monsters in the middle of galaxies are actively devouring material, but their hidden nature makes observing them a challenge. NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) recently caught a glimpse of five of these secluded beasts.

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NuSTAR Principal Investigator Receives High-Energy Astrophysics Prize

Feature Story • January 16, 2015

The 2015 Rossi Prize has been awarded to Fiona Harrison, a professor at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California, for her "groundbreaking work on supernova remnants, neutron stars and black holes enabled by NuSTAR".

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Sun Sizzles in High-Energy X-Rays

Feature Story • December 22, 2014

For the first time, a mission designed to set its eyes on black holes and other objects far from our solar system has turned its gaze back closer to home, capturing images of our sun. NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array has taken its first picture of the sun, producing the most sensitive solar portrait ever taken in high-energy X-rays.

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Pulse of a Dead Star Powers Intense Gamma Rays

Feature Story • September 16, 2014

When the most massive stars explode as supernovas, they don't fade into the night, but sometimes glow ferociously with high-energy gamma rays. What powers these energetic stellar remains?

NuSTAR Celebrates Two Years of Science in Space

Feature Story • July 31, 2014

NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, a premier black-hole hunter among other talents, has finished up its two-year prime mission, and will be moving onto its next phase, a two-year extension.

Swiftly Moving Gas Streamer Eclipses Supermassive Black Hole

Feature Story • June 19, 2014

Astronomers have discovered strange and unexpected behaviour around the supermassive black hole at the heart of the galaxy NGC 5548. The international team of researchers detected a clumpy gas stream flowing quickly outwards and blocking 90 percent of the X-rays emitted by the black hole. This activity could provide insights into how supermassive black holes interact with their host galaxies.

NuSTAR Celebrates its 2nd Birthday

Feature Story • June 13, 2014

A collection of images from NuSTAR's 2nd Birthday celebrations around the world.

Fu, Harrison, and Preskill Elected to the National Academy of Sciences

Feature Story • April 30, 2014

Three professors at Caltech have been elected to the prestigious National Academy of Sciences. The announcement was made Tuesday, April 29, in Washington D.C. The new Caltech electees are Gregory C. Fu, Altair Professor of Chemistry; Fiona A. Harrison, Benjamin M. Rosen Professor of Physics; and John P. Preskill, Richard P. Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics.

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Caltech Faculty Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Feature Story • April 28, 2014

The American Academy of Arts and Sciences has elected three Caltech faculty members as academy fellows. They are John F. Brady, Chevron Professor of Chemical Engineering and Mechanical Engineering and executive officer for chemical engineering; Kenneth A. Farley, W. M. Keck Foundation Professor of Geochemistry and chair of the Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences; and Fiona A. Harrison, Benjamin M. Rosen Professor of Physics.

Two Students from Long Island Win Top Intel Awards

Feature Story • March 11, 2014

Two high school seniors from Long Island are among the top 10 winners named Tuesday night in the prestigious Intel Science Talent Search competition, chosen from among 40 finalists across the country competing in Washington, D.C.

showing 25 of 142 records on page 1 of 2

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The Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array science operations center is located on the campus of the California Institute of Technology