Our IXPE telescope found strong evidence to support a 90-year-old quantum theory that suggests the vacuum of space can be altered by extreme magnetic fields. IXPE used its unique X-ray vision on a supermagnetized stellar remnant to test this theory. t.co/Bz15l2nfpH 🔗 go.nasa.gov/4fUqmiO

Wishing the summer heat would fade? It could be worse! The dayside of one of the hottest planets known, KELT-9 b, is hotter than the surfaces of some stars. #MondayMotivation

Which would you rather stumble upon: a black hole or a shark? We prefer neither … but if you’re curious, we can help you with the first one! Take the plunge into a black hole from the comfort of your own device here: t.co/ExJzhitTEi

New NASA Black Hole Visualization Takes Viewers Beyond the Brink - NASA Science

Ever wonder what happens when you fall into a black hole? Now, thanks to a new, immersive visualization produced on a NASA supercomputer, viewers can plunge

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Our Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory is 18 feet (5.5 meters) long, but how do sharks measure up? In 2009 a team of scientists caught and released a 17.9 foot long great white shark named “Apache," but the largest great whites can approach 20 feet!

Is it just us or do you see a shark? 👀 This superbubble in star cluster NGC 1929 may resemble one. But how? Massive new stars create radiation, quickly expel matter, and race through their evolution to explode as supernovae. Their outflows and shock waves sculpt these cavities.

Happening tonight! 🔗 twitter.com/i/status/208072...

LINK, the robotic spacecraft from Katalyst Space designed to boost our Swift mission’s orbit, experienced issues with attitude control over the weekend, causing the spacecraft to spin and resulting in sporadic communications. The team is working to stop LINK’s spin over the... 🔗 go.nasa.gov/4xcuamQ

What gives this cosmic lighthouse its checkmark shape? Our IXPE telescope studied the pulsar within the Lighthouse Nebula and its turbulent outflows, confirming a 2008 theory that its long, thin filament is shaped by the galaxy’s magnetic fields. More: t.co/D6cgMoVOlT 🔗 go.nasa.gov/4bhudFi

Dun, dun, dun … 🦈 Did you know black holes are like cosmic sharks? Some lurk in the depths of galaxies, only revealing themselves when they are caught in the rare act of eating a star that got too close. Check out a few that NASA missions spied in the wild. 🧵

Not all those who wander are lost, but this black hole sure seems to be! Our Swift observatory caught a rare lone black hole devouring a star on the outskirts of a faraway galaxy. This event was seen after the star got too close to the black hole. More: t.co/nKXzZc9Ecm 🔗 go.nasa.gov/4yNQl4o

The calcium that makes your bones healthy and strong was made inside large stars that exploded before our solar system formed. #MondayMotivation

Join NASA’s Night Sky Network on Tuesday, July 28, at 6:00 p.m. PT (9:00 p.m. ET) for a livestream about ways to get involved in this year’s International Observe the Moon Night, which is scheduled for Sept. 19. The event will also be recorded. Details: t.co/EpUz5faNSq 🔗 youtu.be/8apFGAM2pYg

Swift. LINK. Pegasus. Those aren’t just random words! These are lead characters in an attempt to boost our Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory to a higher orbit. Keep reading to learn more about each, or check out this page: t.co/JVJeLRyqr8 🧵 🔗 go.nasa.gov/4frmzcB

Ever wondered how an idea becomes a spacecraft? Well first, we gotta scope it out! 🎶 Learn more about how telescopes work here: t.co/JMysOtpIxV

Keep cool like XRISM! To measure the heat from X-rays, the Resolve instrument on the XRISM observatory runs at just one-twentieth of a degree above absolute zero. To stay cold, its cooling system turns on every couple days — and it recently went through its 500th cycle. More about XRISM, a @J...

The XRISM Spacecraft - NASA Science

XRISM (X-ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission) launched on Sept. 6, 2023, from Japan's Tanegashima Space Center. It is the seventh in a series of X-ray

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These stellar siblings brought the drama! Our Fermi telescope revealed that these two supernova remnants may be debris from a pair of once-orbiting massive stars that both exploded. The first blast kicked one star light-years away before its own blow-up: t.co/5YfqmeJXQL

NASA’s Fermi Mission Uncovers Possible Sibling Supernova Remnants - NASA Science

A new study of two supernova remnants, the debris left behind after stars explode, suggests the explosions came from stellar siblings that once orbited each other. The first star’s detonation sent its

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Splashing around in the pool to keep cool? Sloshing might keep the superheated gas in the centers of galaxy clusters hot! An X-ray study showed that motions in the gas in the Centaurus cluster likely prevents the gas from cooling. #MondayMotivation

RT @NASAKennedy: Media accreditation is now open for two Kennedy launches, NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope and the agency’s SpaceX…

Our friends at @Fermilab are celebrating the 70th anniversary of the first neutrino detection. These zippy particles hurtle through the universe, and @NASA telescopes have been able to help pinpoint and study the cosmic origins of a few of them. #Neutrino70 🧵

Our Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory has a whopping wingspan of 17.8 feet (5.4 meters), substantially wider than its namesake bird. You’d need about 11 common swift birds to match Swift’s width. Even the living bird with the widest wingspan, the snowy albatross, falls short!

Commissioning continues for Katalyst Space’s LINK as they turn on and test the robotic spacecraft’s systems to prepare for its boost of our Swift observatory. LINK captured these images of its solar panels and one of its thrusters firing last week. More: t.co/QcoVyYERNo 🔗 go.nasa.gov/4ppL7Hr

#TBT to summer 2016 when @ESA’s LISA Pathfinder turned on its @NASA-provided payload to test key technology that future space missions could use to measure ripples in the fabric of space-time called gravitational waves.

Hot DOGs were on the menu in the early universe! Our retired WISE satellite spied hot dust-obscured galaxies (DOGs) located about 10 billion light-years away. While they are superbright, most of their light is absorbed by thick shrouds of dust. t.co/kQTclVX6Kz 🔗 go.nasa.gov/4fjul8i

#OTD in 2018 HaloSat deployed from the @Space_Station! This toaster-sized satellite helped find that the hot gas surrounding our galaxy, called its halo, is disk-shaped and clumpier than expected. More: t.co/KCtpzGWwNS

Clumpy, Recycled Gas From Stars Surrounds Milky Way - NASA

The Milky Way galaxy is in the recycling business. Our galaxy is surrounded by a clumpy halo of hot gases that is continually being supplied with

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Don’t get caught up in the chaos! The planet-forming process can be messy. Near-collisions can occasionally fling a planet out of the gravitational grip of its star. Such rogue planets are likely scattered across our galaxy. #MondayMotivation

#OTD in 2005, @JAXA_en’s Suzaku satellite launched into space bearing X-ray technology developed at @NASA as part of an ongoing collaboration between the two space agencies. For a decade, Suzaku studied some of the hottest spots in the cosmos: t.co/cSCKIDhJMb

Want to make stellar treats like the members of our Fermi satellite team? Then check out the yummy sugar cookie recipe in the Fermi e-book, “Our High-Energy Universe: 15 Years with the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope”: t.co/C92Xi4iIdA #SugarCookieDay 🔗 go.nasa.gov/4w5dNbp

Meet some cosmic ancestors. The @ESA_Euclid telescope, led by ESA with contributions from @NASA, has found some of the oldest quasars ever seen. Studies of these black-hole-powered galaxies help us learn how the earliest galaxies and black holes formed. t.co/783ejdVgxc 🔗 go.nasa.gov/44NaglV

When two stars collide, the result can be beautiful. This nebula, called the Blue Ring Nebula, is thought to show the aftermath of a stellar collision that occurred thousands of years ago. #MondayMotivation

Did you miss one of the biggest Swift events of the year? The LINK robotic spacecraft from Katalyst Space launched last week on a Northrop Grumman Pegasus XL to attempt an orbital boost of our Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory. But what’s next? Let’s take a look. ⬇️