X-ray

The cosmic beauty of space never ceases to impress. New Atlas rounds up some of the most incredible space photos of 2019, including historic firsts, stunning starscapes, gorgeous galaxies and some new angles on our own solar system.

On August 20, an x-ray instrument on the ISS caught a bright x-ray burst from a pulsar thousands of light-years away, which released as much energy in 20 seconds as the Sun does in 10 days. Now a NASA team has outlined what they believe caused it.

In NGC 6946, better known as the Fireworks galaxy, an extremely bright flare of X-rays was seen to appear and disappear within a matter of weeks.

NASA has celebrated the 20th anniversary of the Chandra X-ray Observatory's orbital life with a collection of new images that reflect the beauty and scientific importance of the veteran space telescope's work.

A new way of bending X-rays raises the prospect of smaller, more powerful X-ray space telescopes. Based on technology originally developed for medical imaging machines, the new design replaces conventional mirrors with a network of micro-engineered plastic prisms.

Artificial Intelligence promises to revolutionize many fields, but few as important as healthcare. With that in mind, Nvidia and King's College London have teamed up to build and train an AI platform to interpret radiological scans for hospitals across the UK.

Many black holes have been found to spew jets of high-speed particles. Those usually form long, straight beams but now astronomers have discovered a weird black hole that’s spinning like a wonky top, firing off “bullets” of plasma in all directions.

Music lovers in the Soviet Union during the 1950s had to sneak X-ray plates on their turntables if they wanted to listen to tunes from prohibited international musicians. Now a project has etched tracks by modern artists onto X-rays of skulls, skeletons and joints and put them up for auction.

It's hard to really understand the large-scale structure of the Milky Way. Now, astronomers have peered towards the center of the galaxy using the ESA's X-ray telescope XMM-Newton, and discovered two colossal "chimneys" pumping huge amounts of energy and gas out into intergalactic space.

Radio waves are still the main way to communicate with spacecraft, but that aging technology could soon get an upgrade that will allow faster data downloads from space. NASA is currently preparing to test out an x-ray communication system on the International Space Station.

An international team of researchers has developed novel nanocrystals that allow the radiation dose from a diagnostic X-ray to be much lower, while also enabling higher resolution images at a lower cost.

Researchers at Purdue University have developed a living device for radiologists, using yeast colonies in wearable patches to monitor how much radiation a person is being exposed to.