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X-Ray

The X-Ray Science Interest Group (XR SIG) serves as an active communication forum for X-Ray astrophysics. XR SIG is open to the scientific community.

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About XR SIG

Supporting Mission Studies and Concept Development for Future X-Ray Observatories

The X-Ray Science Interest Group (XR SIG) will provide quantitative metrics and assessments to NASA with regard to future X-Ray observatories.

XR SIG will track and analyze evolving science goals and requirements in X-Ray astronomy, especially as current hot topics evolve. XR SIG will also analyze technology development and prioritization plans and assist the Physics of the Cosmos Program Analysis Group in determining technology needs.

The X-Ray Sky about Supporting Mission Studies and Concept Development for Future X-Ray Observatories
Unlabeled version of above.Credits: NASA/NICER
This image of the whole sky shows 22 months of X-ray data recorded by NASA’s Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) payload aboard the International Space Station during its nighttime slews between targets. NICER frequently observes targets best suited to its core mission (“mass-radius” pulsars) and those whose regular pulses are ideal for the Station Explorer for X-ray Timing and Navigation Technology (SEXTANT) experiment. One day they could form the basis of a GPS-like system for navigating the solar system.
Credits: NASA/NICER

X-Ray SIG Chairs

Current Chairs

NameInstitutionTerm
David PooleyTrinity UniversityDec 2021 – Dec 2025
Chien-Ting ChenUSRA / MSFCFeb 2023 – Dec 2025
Fabio PacucciCfA
Breanna BinderCal Poly Pomona
Steven EhlertMSFC

Former Chairs

Former chairs of the X-Ray Science Interest Group (XR SIG) who served on the PhysPAG Executive Committee from 2012 through 2021.

NameInstitutionSIGTerm
Brian GrefenstetteCaltechXR SIG / HWOJan 2024
Grant TremblaySmithsonian Astrophysical Observatory Observatory
XR SIG		Dec 2019 – Dec 2023
Jillian BellovaryQueensborough Community CollegeGW SIG / XR SIG2019 – 2022
Ryan HickoxDartmouth CollegeXR SIG2018 – 2022
John TomsickUC BerkeleyGR SIG / XR SIG2016 – 2019
Mark BautzMITXR SIG2014 – March 2018
Ralph KraftSAOXR SIG2016 – 2018
Jay BookbinderSAOXR SIG2012 – 2016
John NousekPenn State UniversityXR SIG2013–2016

X-Ray Science Interest Group Events

The XR SIG regularly hosts splinter meetings at the Winter AAS Meetings and the regular meetings of the High Energy Astrophysics Division. These sessions are intended to introduce the XR SIG to new members of the X-Ray Astronomy community and to provide a platform for members to exchange views and provide updates on new missions, concept studies, or scientific results from the existing fleet of NASA Astrophysics Missions. Occasionally ad hoc meetings are also called by the XR SIG Leadership to solicit feedback from the community as needed (e.g., when the SIG responds to queries from the larger PhysPAG EC on technology or science gaps). Both the regular splinter meetings and the ad hoc sessions are announced via the X-Ray SIG News and Announcements Email List, which we encourage all interested colleagues to join.

A rectangular image with black vertical rectangles at the bottle left and top right to indicate missing data. A young star-forming region is filled with wispy orange, red, and blue layers of gas and dust. The upper left corner of the image is filled with mostly orange dust, and within that orange dust, there are several small red plumes of gas that extend from the top left to the bottom right, at the same angle. The center of the image is filled with mostly blue gas. At the center, there is one particularly bright star, that has an hourglass shadow above and below it. To the right of that is what looks a vertical eye-shaped crevice with a bright star at the center. The gas to the right of the crevice is a darker orange. Small points of light are sprinkled across the field, brightest sources in the field have extensive eight-pointed diffraction spikes that are characteristic of the Webb Telescope.

12-16 October 2025

HEAD22 Meeting
St. Louis, Missouri

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This image depicts a gamma-ray burst caused by the merger of two neutron stars.

3 October 2025

Title TBA

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A section of the Cat’s Paw Nebula, a local star-forming region composed of gas, dust, and young stars. Four roughly circular areas are toward the center of the frame: a small oval toward the top left, a large circle in the top center, and two ovals at bottom left and right. Each circular area has a luminous blue glow, with the top center and bottom left areas the brightest. Brown-orange filaments of dust, which vary in density, surround these four bluish patches and stretch toward the frame’s edges. Small zones, such as to the left and right of the top-center blue circular area, appear darker and seemingly vacant of stars. Toward the center are small, fiery red clumps scattered among the brown dust. Many small, yellow-white stars are spread across the scene, some with eight-pointed diffraction spikes that are characteristic of Webb. A few larger blue-white stars with diffraction spikes are scattered throughout, mostly toward the top left and bottom right. In the top right corner is a bright red-orange oval.

19 September 2025

Title TBA

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Colorful, mostly blue image of mid-infrared light from a glowing cloud with a distorted, asymmetrical shape. A star at the center of the image is a small point of pinkish-white light. The asymmetrical shape of the expanding cloud of gas and dust resembles paint splattered on the ground. The filaments of the expanding shells are wispy, and mostly white and blue. The shells appear as lobes stretching from roughly 11 to 5 o’clock, another from 1 to 7 o’clock, and possibly a third from 12 to 6 o’clock. These outflows push gas toward the equatorial plane, forming a disk that appears to span from 9 to 3 o’clock. A perfect circle of whitish blue dust traces the outer edges of the shells. The background of the image is black and speckled with tiny bright stars and distant galaxies.

5 September 2025

Title TBA

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Hubble Probes the Archeology of Our Milky Way's Ancient Hub

22 August 2025

Ultra-High Angular Resolution

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Composite image of Markarian 573 in X-ray, radio, and visible light.

8 August 2025

Lynx+ Mission: Building on the Lynx Astro2020 Concept, with Extended Capabilities

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The Whirlpool Galaxy in Visible and X-ray Views

HEAD 21: 21st Meeting of the High Energy Astrophysics Division

7 – 12 April 2024
Horseshoe Bay, Texas

XR SIG Session
A field filled with stars and galaxies against a black background. A small pinkish circle at image center denotes the host galaxy of a gamma-ray burst.

243rd Meeting of the American Astronomical Society

7 – 11 January 2024
New Orleans, Louisiana

XR SIG Session
NuSTAR - X-ray Binaries

XR SIG Science Gap Discussion

7 December 2023
Virtual

XR SIG Session
Chandra/Hubble/Spitzer X-ray/Visible/Infrared Image of M82

233rd Meeting of the American Astronomical

6 – 10 January 2019
Seattle, Washington

XR SIG Session
MACS J0416

231st Meeting of the American Astronomical Society

8 – 12 January 2018
Washington, DC

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At the bottom left of this vertical image are the thickest regions of brown and rusty red gas and dust. There are many layers of semi-transparent gas and dust overlaying one another. A peak rises about a third of the way from the bottom, and becomes far darker brown with two bright red areas toward the tip. The light brown dust becomes more diaphanous about halfway up the screen. There’s a slight gap in the dust, which allows the blue background to come into view clearly. About 60% of the background in this image is set in shades of blue and littered with tiny yellow and blue stars. The brown pillars continue, taking the shape of a shoulder at the base, with three prominent columns rising out toward the upper right. The top left pillar is the largest and widest. The peaks of the second and third pillars are set off in darker shades of brown and have red outlines. For more details, download the Text Description.

229th Meeting of the American Astronomical Society

3 – 7 January 2017
Grapevine, Texas

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The image is divided horizontally by an undulating line between a brown cloudscape forming a nebula along the bottom and a comparatively clear upper portion in blue. Speckled across both portions is a starfield, showing innumerable stars of many sizes. The upper blue portion has wispy translucent cloud-like streaks rising from the nebula below. The orange and brown cloudy formation in the bottom half varies in density and ranges from translucent to opaque. The nebula contains ridges, peaks, and valleys—an appearance similar to a mountain range. In the bottom left corner, a clearer area free of gas and dust appears black with speckled stars.

APS April Meeting 2016

16 – 19 April 2016
Salt Lake City, Utah

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Near-infrared image of Rho Opiuchi outlined in white, set on a black background. Red dual opposing jets coming from young stars fill the darker top half of the image, while a glowing pale-yellow, cave-like structure is bottom center, tilted toward two o'clock, with a bright star at its center. At the top right of the poster is the blue, red, and white NASA logo, with the words "National Aeronautics and Space Administration", in white text to its left. The words "NIRCam Image" are set in a small white type on the bottom right of the image. The title is set below the image, along the bottom of the poster: "James Webb Space Telescope" appears in small orange type on the top line with "Rho Ophiuchi Cloud Complex" in large white type on the bottom line.

HEAD 15: Annual Meeting for High Energy Astrophysics Division

3 – 7 April 2016
Naples, Florida

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The lower half of this image contains arcs of bluish material that form a boat-like shape. One end of these arcs points to the top right of the image, while the other end points toward the bottom left. Another plume of blue filaments expands from the center to the top left, resembling the mast of a sailboat. Within and extending beyond the boat shape are translucent curtains of pink, which appear atop the boat shape as well and cover most of the image. Stars are noticeably scarce. A couple dozen bright pink patches with six short diffraction spikes are scattered within the blue filaments. Many faint blue dots, or stars, also speckle the background, which is black or dark gray.

227th Meeting of the American Astronomical Society

4 – 8 January 2016
Kissimee, Florida

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A spiral galaxy’s whirling arms fill the image. The yellow galactic core is visible at the bottom center of the image, with arms arcing upward. Dark-brown dust and bright-blue stars lace through the spiral’s arms. A foreground star with diffraction spikes shines at the lower-right side of the image.

HEAD Special Meeting on High Energy Large- and Medium-Class Space Missions in the 2020s

29 June – 1 July 2015
Chicago, Illinois

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Zoom into Eta Carinae, where the outflows of two massive stars collide and shoot accelerated particles cosmic rays into space.Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Music: "Expectant Aspect" from Killer Tracks.YouTube LinkComplete transcript available.

225th Meeting of the American Astronomical Society

4 – 8 January 2015
Seattle, Washington

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Toward the top, right, and bottom are orange clouds of dust and gas filled with many white, blue, and purple stars. The roughly circular orange clouds look like an open jaw, facing left.

AHEAD 14: Annual Meeting for High Energy Astrophysics Division

17 – 21 August 2014
Chicago, Illinois

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WFPC2 Image of Eta Carinae

223rd Meeting of the American Astronomical Society

5 – 9 January 2014
Washington, DC

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A face-on barred spiral galaxy. Rusty-brown dust lanes and bright-blue and pink patches denote the galaxy's spiral arms. Distant, reddish-orange galaxies dot the black background.

HEAD 13: Annual Meeting for High Energy Astrophysics Division

7 – 11 April 2013
Monterey, California

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Swirls of white, blue, and pink against a starry background.

Fourth Meeting of the PhysPAG

14 – 16 August 2012
Washington, DC

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X-Ray SIG Documents

Decadal Survey White Papers Project

Physics of Cosmic Plasmas from High Angular Resolution X-ray Imaging of Galaxy Clusters

Aug 7, 2025

PDF (4.70 MB)

Probing Macro-Scale Gas Motions and Turbulence in Diffuse Cosmic Plasmas

Aug 7, 2025

PDF (1.36 MB)

Do Supermassive Black Hole Winds Impact Galaxy Evolution?

Aug 7, 2025

PDF (593.88 KB)

X-ray Studies of Supernova Remnants

Aug 7, 2025

PDF (1.39 MB)

Density Measurement of X-ray Outflows (Warm Absorbers and Ultra Fast Outflows)

Aug 7, 2025

PDF (202.10 KB)

Unveiling the Galaxy Cluster—Cosmic Web Connection with X-ray Observations in the Next Decade

Aug 7, 2025

PDF (3.54 MB)

Unlocking the Capabilities of Future High-Resolution X-ray Spectroscopy Missions Through Laboratory Astrophysics

Aug 7, 2025

PDF (1.02 MB)

Supermassive Black Hole Spin and Reverberation

Aug 7, 2025

PDF (420.77 KB)

Cooking with X-rays: Can X-ray Binaries Heat the Early Universe?

Aug 7, 2025

PDF (1.66 MB)

Accretion in Stellar-Mass Black Holes at High X-ray Resolution

Aug 7, 2025

PDF (291.81 KB)

Time Domain Studies of Neutron Star and Black Hole Populations: X-ray Identification of Compact Object Types

Aug 7, 2025

PDF (127.65 KB)

The Future Landscape of High-Redshift Galaxy Cluster Science

Aug 7, 2025

PDF (2.13 MB)

Probing the Black Hole Engine with Measurements of the Relativistic X-ray Reflection Component

Aug 7, 2025

PDF (1.76 MB)

Supermassive Black Hole Feedback

Aug 7, 2025

PDF (5.33 MB)

X-rays Studies of the Solar System

Aug 7, 2025

PDF (5.48 MB)

Detecting the Birth of Supermassive Black Holes Formed from Heavy Seeds

Aug 7, 2025

PDF (1.38 MB)

X-ray Follow-Up of Extragalactic Transients

Aug 7, 2025

PDF (6.82 MB)

Black Hole Growth in Mergers and Dual AGN

Aug 7, 2025

PDF (2.49 MB)

X-Ray SIG white paper 5 July 2015

The Scientific Significance of the Soft X-Ray Spectrometer

Aug 7, 2025

PDF (407.13 KB)

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