Category: X-ray

‘X-ray Specs’: Canadian Scientists Starry-eyed Over James Webb Space Telescope

It’s as if they were using a telescope not just to peer into space, but also into time. Canadian scientists are already using spectacular data and images from the recently launched James Webb Space telescope to look backward into some of the oldest stars ever studied and forward into how new stars and planets are…


The Sometimes Strange History of the X-Ray

Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen discovered the X-ray in Germany in 1895 as he experimented with cathode rays. He used a cathode tube and covered it with a heavy black cloth. Röntgen was astonished to find an incandescent green light projected onto a nearby fluorescent screen. He called this discovery “X” rays, due to the fact that…


NASA Releases Extraordinary New Photo of Milky Way’s Bustling Cosmic ‘Downtown’

NASA has released a stunning new picture of our galaxy’s violent, super-energized “downtown.” It’s a composite of 370 observations over the past two decades by the orbiting Chandra X-ray Observatory, depicting billions of stars and countless black holes in the center, or heart, of the Milky Way. A radio telescope in South Africa also contributed…