NuSTAR rises to guide astrophysics research into hard X-ray regime

NuSTAR rises to guide astrophysics research into hard X-ray regime: NASA’s newest telescope headed for orbit last week, its rocket igniting in the night skies south of Kwajalein Atoll after being dropped from the underbelly of a Lockheed L-1011 plane.

(An illustration of NuSTAR in orbit. Credit: NASA/Caltech)
“The Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) is a Small Explorer class NASA mission, developed by a team of scientists and engineers under the leadership of Prof. Fiona Harrison from the California Institute of Technology. It will use an innovative system of nested X-ray mirrors to open a new window onto the cosmos: the high-energy X-ray window.”
“This is the same range of X-ray wavelengths used to image broken bones and scan luggage. NuSTAR’s mirrors will collect high-energy X-ray photons emitted by cosmic sources, focusing the light into images 10 times sharper and 100 times more sensitive than any previous high-energy X-ray telescope.”
“NuSTAR will team with other telescopes to study the high-energy universe. For example, it will use its X-ray eye to examine jets of particles blasting out of active galactic nuclei that have already been pinpointed by the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope.”
“NuSTAR can convert high-energy X-ray photons into sharp images ...