Images by Date
Images by Category
Solar System
Stars
Exoplanets
White Dwarfs
Supernovas
Neutron Stars
Black Holes
Milky Way Galaxy
Normal Galaxies
Quasars
Galaxy Clusters
Cosmology/Deep Field
Miscellaneous
Images by Interest
Space Scoop for Kids
4K JPG
Multiwavelength
Sky Map
Constellations
Photo Blog
Top Rated Images
Image Handouts
Desktops
Fits Files
Visual descriptions
Image Tutorials
Photo Album Tutorial
False Color
Cosmic Distance
Look-Back Time
Scale & Distance
Angular Measurement
Images & Processing
AVM/Metadata
Image Use Policy
Web Shortcuts
Chandra Blog
RSS Feed
Chronicle
Email Newsletter
News & Noteworthy
Image Use Policy
Questions & Answers
Glossary of Terms
Download Guide
Get Adobe Reader
NGC 5128 Animations
Click for low-resolution animation
Tour of NGC 5128
Quicktime MPEG With closed-captions (at YouTube)

Astronomers have found a pair of extraordinary objects that dramatically burst in X-rays. This discovery, made using data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and ESA's XMM-Newton observatory, may represent a new class of explosive events.

The mysterious sources flare up and become about a hundred times brighter in X-rays in less than a minute, before returning to the original X-ray levels after about an hour. One of the sources, located near and presumably associated with the galaxy NGC 4636 at a distance of 47 million light years, was observed to flare once. Five flares were detected from the other source, which is located near the galaxy NGC 5128 at a distance of 12 million light years.

What could these objects be? Probably not magnetars, which are young neutron stars with powerful magnetic fields. Magnetars are also known to have giant X-ray flares, but they are different from these newly discovered objects in a few different ways including how long they flare and where they are found.

While the nature of these flares is unknown, researchers have begun to search for answers. One idea is that the flares represent episodes when matter being pulled away from a companion star falls rapidly onto a black hole or neutron star. This could happen when the companion makes its closest approach to the compact object in an eccentric orbit. Another explanation could involve matter falling onto an intermediate-mass black hole, with a mass of about 800 times that of the Sun for one source and 80 times that of the Sun for the other.

These new flaring objects will likely keep both observational and theoretical astrophysicists busy for quite some time. Using telescopes like Chandra and XMM-Newton, they undoubtedly hope to come up with more answers soon.
[Runtime: 03:04]

(Credit: NASA/CXC/UA/J.Irwin et al.)




Return to NGC 5128 (October 19, 2016)