Since antiquity, wreaths have symbolized the cycle of life, death, and rebirth. It is fitting then that one of the best places for astronomers to learn more about the stellar lifecycle resembles a giant holiday wreath itself.

The star cluster NGC 602 lies on the outskirts of the Small Magellanic Cloud, which is one of the closest galaxies to the Milky Way, about 200,000 light-years from Earth. The stars in NGC 602 have fewer heavier elements compared to the Sun and most of the rest of the galaxy. Instead, the conditions within NGC 602 mimic those for stars found billions of years ago when the universe was much younger.

A new composition, performed live for the first time on December 14th at the Black Hole Symphony at the Christine McAuliffe Center, is helping people discover science through music.

David Ibbett is Resident Composer at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian (CfA), Professor of Music at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and the Director of Multiverse Concert Series. His new “Voice of the Universe” project uses music to shed light on astrophysical data and images.

The first song to be released, entitled “Luminosity,” was created from the image SMACS 0723 made from data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and James Webb Space Telescope. Different parts of the image are sonified in different ways. Sonification is the process of translating astronomical data into sound using scientific and mathematical mapping. This allows humans to engage with data from the cosmos using one of their senses other than sight.

Even matter ejected by black holes can run into objects in the dark. Using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, astronomers have found an unusual mark from a giant black hole’s powerful jet striking an unidentified object in its path.

The discovery was made in a galaxy called Centaurus A (Cen A), located about 12 million light-years from Earth. Astronomers have long studied Cen A because it has a supermassive black hole in its center sending out spectacular jets that stretch out across the entire galaxy. The black hole launches this jet of high-energy particles not from inside the black hole, but from intense gravitational and magnetic fields around it.

Normally found only in heavy metal bands or certain post-apocalyptic films, a “flame-throwing guitar” has now been spotted moving through space. Astronomers have captured movies of this extreme cosmic object using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and Hubble Space Telescope.

The new movie of Chandra (red) and Palomar (blue) data helps break down what is playing out in the Guitar Nebula. X-rays from Chandra show a filament of energetic matter and antimatter particles, about two light-years or 12 trillion miles long, blasting away from the pulsar (seen as the bright white dot connected to the filament).

Most stars form in collections, called clusters or associations, that include very massive stars. These giant stars send out large amounts of high-energy radiation, which can disrupt relatively fragile disks of dust and gas that are in the process of coalescing to form new planets.

A team of astronomers used NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, in combination with ultraviolet, optical, and infrared data, to show where some of the most treacherous places in a star cluster may be, where planets’ chances to form are diminished.

The target of the observations was Cygnus OB2, which is the nearest large cluster of stars to our Sun — at a distance of about 4,600 light-years. The cluster contains hundreds of massive stars as well as thousands of lower-mass stars. The team used long Chandra observations pointing at different regions of Cygnus OB2, and the resulting set of images were then stitched together into one large image.

On Saturday, October 5, the Raw Science Film Festival opened in New York City and the CfA’s Dr. Kimberly Arcand was on hand, along with Elizabeth Landau of NASA HQ, to celebrate the “Listen to the Universe” documentary that won the Industry award for “Best New Media”.

Watch "Listen to the Universe" on NASA+

“Listen to the Universe” is a 20-minute documentary produced by the Chandra X-ray Center at the CfA and NASA+ that takes viewers behind the scenes of the team that creates data sonifications.

The Raw Science Film Festival included an awards ceremony featuring a special Q&A with actor/executive producer Matthew Modine, along with screenings and director discussions of "Listen to the Universe" and other selected films. The festival's overall mission is to humanize science and keep fact-based storytelling at the forefront of popular culture.

-Megan Watzke CXC

NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and other telescopes have identified a supermassive black hole that has torn apart one star and is now using that stellar wreckage to pummel another star or smaller black hole, as described in our latest press release. This research helps connect two cosmic mysteries and provides information about the environment around some of the bigger types of black holes.

This artist’s illustration shows a disk of material (red, orange, and yellow) that was created after a supermassive black hole (depicted on the right) tore apart a star through intense tidal forces. Over the course of a few years, this disk expanded outward until it intersected with another object — either a star or a small black hole — that is also in orbit around the giant black hole. Each time this object crashes into the disk, it sends out a burst of X-rays detected by Chandra. The inset shows Chandra data (purple) and an optical image of the source from Pan-STARRS (red, green, and blue).

Credit: NASA/CXC/SAO/N.Aftab

Chandra is committed not only to learning about the Universe, but also to learning about learning about the Universe. Our team have become experts — and partners with others outside of Chandra — on examining how people view and explore space through astronomical data.

Our latest research project involves investigating how people with color blindness experience astronomical images. Please consider taking our survey on this topic. You do not need to have color blindness to participate, but, of course, we are excited to hear from people who do!

The survey is open now. We would greatly appreciate it if you could take the time to fill it out — it’s short! Also, please feel free to share this survey with your family, friends, and colleagues: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/coloruniverse

Thank you for your help!

Astronomers using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory have found a galaxy cluster has two streams of superheated gas crossing one another. This result shows that crossing the streams may lead to the creation of new structure.

Researchers have discovered an enormous, comet-like tail of hot gas — spanning over 1.6 million light-years long — trailing behind a galaxy within the galaxy cluster called Zwicky 8338 (Z8338 for short). This tail, spawned as the galaxy had some of its gas stripped off by the hot gas it is hurtling through, has split into two streams.

This is the second pair of tails trailing behind a galaxy in this system. Previously, astronomers discovered a shorter pair of tails from a different galaxy near this latest one. This newer and longer set of tails was only seen because of a deeper observation with Chandra that revealed the fainter X-rays.