The Universe is a tough neighborhood
Stars explode,
sending million-degree gas screaming away at 10 million kilometers per hour.
Black holes tear apart matter, voraciously
devouring gas, dust, stars, anything within their reach. Galaxy cores, each
possessing monstrous black holes, not only gobble down material, but also
send out powerful jets of
matter and energy that can be seen clear across the observable Universe.
This is the high-energy Universe in which we live. Our eyes only see the
relatively low-energy events, the ones that produce visible
light. To get a look at the real action we need eyes sensitive to X-rays.
That is the purpose of the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array
( NuSTAR ) mission: to bring the high-energy Universe into focus.
NEW! NASA has made a decision to restart an astronomy mission (i.e. NuSTAR) that will have greater capability than any existing instrument for detecting black holes in the local universe. Read more.
NEW! NuSTAR has a MySpace page. Check it out.
