"When you look at a galaxy in the X-ray band, you get quite a different view of its nature: this includes seeing evidence of PAST star formation via the compact objects left over from supernova explosions as well as the hot, diffuse interstellar medium that is a repository for past supernova explosions and stellar winds from massive stars. One of the great frontiers in such studies, which has really opened up within the past decade, concerns extending studies of these phenomena in galaxies to ever-higher (harder) X-ray energies, well above the 0.5-10 keV bandpass that has been explored by so many X-ray missions to date. This talk will cover results from NuSTAR, a small Explorer mission that launched in June 2012 that operates in the 3-80 keV bandpass. Among its many achievements, NuSTAR has enabled hard X-ray studies of neutron stars and black holes in nearby galaxies and is paving the way for future, more capable mission concepts. This talk will cover what we learn by studying galaxies in the harder X-ray bandpass as well as prospects for future studies with upcoming missions." -- Talk abstract by Dr. Ann E. Hornschemeier.

About the Speaker

Dr. Ann E. Hornschemeier specializes in studies of X-ray emission from accreting black hole and neutron star binary populations, both in the local universe and at cosmologically interesting distances (z greater than 0.1). This work is carried out using surveys by space-based X-ray, UV, and infrared observatories as well as ground-based telescopes, working in coordination with theorists. She chairs the NuSTAR Starburst and Local Group science working group, carrying out observations on nearby galaxies and coordinating observations with Chandra, XMM-Newton and Swift with a team of approximately ten scientists both at NASA GSFC and universities. Dr. Hornschemeier currently serves as the Chief of the X-ray Astrophysics Laboratory at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, consisting of more than seventy scientists, engineers, and technicians. X-ray Astrophysics Laboratory personnel conduct research in observational astrophysics and on X-ray instruments and optics, operate a suite of existing X-ray missions, and perform mission design and instrument/optics development for future missions. Dr. Hornschemeier is personally also heavily involved in future missions, serving as the only U.S. science Co-I on the Wide Field Imager (WFI) instrument on the European Space Agency’s (ESA’s) Athena X-ray observatory and also as a member of the international consortium for the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) mission, a space-based gravitational wave mission led by ESA.

This talk was delivered on 21st July 2021 as part of the Galactic Fidelity Seminar Series.

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