Astronomers have identified 84 'hypersoft X-ray sources' across six galaxies using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, including Andromeda and the Pinwheel Galaxy, in a discovery announced on 9 September 2026.
The objects are detected through unusually low-energy X-rays, while modelling suggests they produce large amounts of energetic ultraviolet radiation, much of it in the extreme-ultraviolet range, a combination of properties the researchers say has not previously been observed in a group of cosmic sources.
