Japan’s new X-ray telescope shares detailed information about black holes, supernovae

Less than a year after its launch, Japan’s X-ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission (XRISM) has already delivered its first results, revealing important information about black holes and supernova remnants. XRISM is a collaboration between the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and the European Space Agency (ESA). Its observations reveal the structure, motion and temperature of material around supermassive black holes and the dynamics of supernova remnants. The findings mark an important step toward understanding the behavior of the most extreme environments in the universe.

Discovery of supermassive black holes

According to the ESA post, one of the mission’s first targets is the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy NGC 4151, 62 million light-years away. The mass of this black hole is 30 million times that of the sun. The XRISM telescope observed the plasma swirling around it at a distance of about 0.1 light-years, moving inward to 0.001 light-years before falling into the black hole.

By focusing on the X-ray signature of iron atoms, scientists identified key structures around the black hole, such as the accretion disk and surrounding rings of gas and dust. This detailed observation provides new insights into how supermassive black holes consume surrounding matter.

Supernova remnants discovered

XRISM also studied the supernova remnant N132D, located in the Large Magellanic Cloud. This material was ejected by a massive star about 3,000 years ago. Telescope observations revealed that the debris expanded in an uneven ring-shaped structure rather than a spherical shell as previously thought.

Plasma expands at 2.6 million miles per hour and reaches temperatures as high as 10 billion degrees Celsius. The results provide key clues about how elements formed in supernovae are dispersed throughout space and recycled into new stars. Preliminary results demonstrate the power of XRISM, and 104 upcoming observations are expected to lead to more discoveries.