XMM-Newton Ruler Images

Dying Star

Dying StarNGC 7009 is the glowing death-throes of a dying star. Thousands of years ago the star, once much like the Sun, was reaching the end of its life. It started to blow a slow, dense wind, like the solar wind. As the star aged further, the wind it blew got faster. The fast wind caught up with the slower moving-gas and collided with it. This cosmic train-wreck heated up the gas (called a "nebula"), making it glow. It can also sculpt the gas into odd shapes; in this case the ellipses and knots seen (making it obvious why NGC 7009 is nicknamed "the Saturn Nebula"). The fast wind scoops up the slower wind, leaving behind a large cavity surrounding the star. In the image, the red and green colors show the visible light emitted by the relatively cool regions of gas, and the blue color represents the X-rays from the very hot gas. Superimposed, they show that the inner cavity is actually filled with hot gas, heated by the collision. The star itself can be seen in the center.

URL for more info: http://xmm.vilspa.esa.es/external/xmm_science/gallery/public/level3.php?id=244
Image courtesy of M.A. Guerrero, University of Illinois, USA and ESA
Visible light image: Hubble Space Telescope, taken by a team led by B. Balick (University of Washington)
X-ray images: XMM-Newton, taken by a team led by Y.-H. Chu (University of Illinois)
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Gas Bubble

Gas BubbleThe Sun is a relatively stable, calm star, but not all stars are alike. Some, much more massive than the Sun, are far hotter and more excitable. Among the most spectacular are the Wolf-Rayet stars, which are near the theoretical limit for how massive and hot stars can be without tearing themselves to pieces. These stars blow off a violent stream of gas, which scoops up the gas around the star like a snowshovel piling up snow, creating a giant bubble in space. The bubble shown, called S308, is one such cavity carved out by the wind. The gas inside the cavity is heated to tens of millions of degrees, and glows in X-rays. The image on the left shows these X-rays coming from the shell of the bubble. The image on the right shows the corresponding emission in optical light from cooler gas. In X-rays alone, this bubble gives off about ten times as much energy as the Sun does!

Image courtesy of Y-H.Chu (University of Illinois), R.A. Gruendl (San Diego State University and University of Illinois) and ESA.
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XMM-Newton Satellite

XMM-Newton SatelliteXMM-Newton is an X-ray observatory built and launched as a joint venture of the United States and European space agencies. You can read more about XMM-Newton at the Observatory and Instruments section of this site.
Image courtesy of ESA
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Lockman's Hole

Lockman's HoleMost people think of space as empty, but in fact there can be quite a bit of gas and dust particles floating around, which obscure the most distant objects in the Universe. Sometimes, though, there can be a "clearing" of material, allowing a better view. One such region is the "Lockman Hole", named after astronomer F. Jay Lockman, who discovered it. Through this hole in the gas, the X-rays from distant galaxies can reach the Earth relatively unobscured. This XMM-Newton image is the total of nearly 100,000 seconds of exposure time (over a solid day!), and shows more than 60 previously undetected sources of X-rays from the early Universe. Each spot in the image is an entire galaxy, pouring out high-energy X-rays, probably emitted as matter falls into supermassive black holes.

Image courtesy of G. Hasinger, MPE Garching, Germany and ESA.
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Andromeda galaxy

Andromeda galaxyThe famous Andromeda Galaxy is the nearest large spiral galaxy to our own Milky Way. Although it appears as just a smudge to the naked eye or through binoculars, it is actually a mighty collection of hundreds of billions of stars. Centered on the nucleus of the Andromeda Galaxy, this XMM-Newton image covers an area of the sky about the size of the full Moon. Over 100 sources of X-rays can be seen, including neutron stars, black holes, exploding stars, and binary stars.

Image courtesy of S. Trudolyubov and ESA.
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Galaxy M81

Galaxy M81M81 is another relatively nearby spiral galaxy in the constellaion of Ursa Major. In this image, the blue and green regions are from ultraviolet sources, which is mostly from hot young stars. This indicates sites of star formation (since the stars are young), and traces the spiral arms of the galaxy. The red regions are from X-ray emitting sources. The bright emission from the center is thought to originate from a supermassive black hole that is slowly eating the matter around it. As the matter falls into that bottomless pit, it heats up to millions of degrees and glows in X-rays. This image is a combination of images from the XMM-Newton Optical Monitor (which is sensitive to ultraviolet light as well) and the X-ray Telescope.

Image courtesy of A. Breeveld, M.S.S.L. and RGS Consortium and ESA
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