Japan Launches X-Ray Observatory to Study Black Holes, Star Explosions

The satellite's solar arrays deployed as planned, and the spacecraft is currently in good health, JAXA officials said. The spacecraft's observations should help astronomers better understand a variety of phenomena throughout the universe, including dramatic supernova explosions, how material spirals into the maws of black holes and how gigantic galaxy clusters evolve over time, NASA officials have said. Astro-H should be capable of observing X-ray sources 10 times fainter than those studied by i