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Japan, Ogasawara
Stargazing Tour - Observe the best starry sky in Japan, Ogasawara!
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Quiet Stargazing
Shifting Coronas Around Black Holes Artist Concept
Explore the profound quiet of the universe through NASA's high-resolution archives. Perfect for your stargazing journey.
Celestial Log
NASA Observation
A supermassive black hole is depicted in this artist's concept, surrounded by a swirling disk of material falling onto it. The purplish ball of light above the black hole, a feature called the corona, contains highly energetic particles that generate X-ray light. If you could view the corona with your eyes, it would appear nearly invisible since we can't see its X-ray light. The corona gathers inward (left), becoming brighter, before shooting away from the black hole (middle and right). Astronomers don't know why the coronas shift, but they have learned that this process leads to a brightening of X-ray light that can be observed by telescopes. Normally, before a black hole's corona shifts, there is already an effect at work called relativistic boosting. As X-ray light from the corona reflects off the black hole's surrounding disk of material -- which is traveling near half the speed of light -- the X-ray light becomes brightened, as seen on the left side of the illustration. This boosting occurs on the side of the disk where the material is traveling toward us. The opposite effect, a dimming of the X-ray light, occurs on the other side of the disk moving away from us. Another form of relativistic boosting happens when the corona shoots away from the black hole, and later collapses. Its X-ray light is also brightened as the corona travels toward us at very fast speeds, leading to X-ray flares. In 2014, NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, and Swift space telescopes witnessed an X-flare from the supermassive black hole in a distant galaxy called Markarian 335. The observations allowed astronomers to link a shifting corona to an X-ray flare for the first time. http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA20051
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Knowledge Base
Stargazer FAQ
Are the colors in this nebula image real?
NASA often uses 'false color' techniques. Scientists map invisible wavelengths (like infrared) or specific gases to visible colors (red, green, blue) to highlight the nebula's structural details.
Can I see this nebula with a standard telescope?
While some bright nebulas are visible with entry-level telescopes, capturing these stunning details usually requires deep-sky astrophotography equipment and long exposures.