During this week, NuSTAR performed an observation of the nearby radio galaxy 3C390.3 coordinated with the JAXA/NASA/ESA XRISM observatory. This target is a classic example of an Active Galactic Nucleus (AGN) where evidence of relativistic motion is observed in the spectrum of emission lines from material in and around an accretion disk close to a supermassive black hole. 3C290.3 is an ideal target for studying AGN variability, accretion disk structure, and the geometry of multi-temperature plasmas surronding the black hole through reverberation mapping campaigns. Data from the simultaneous XRISM and NuSTAR observations offers an unprecedented look at the structure of the accretion flow. Combining the high spectral resolution of XRISM and the broad X-ray energy sensitivity of NuSTAR provides detailed constraints on the intrinsic radiation emission and the reprocessing by the gas that surrounds, and is accreting onto, the black hole. This will lead to a clean, broadband benchmark to map the AGN structure in this prototypical radio galaxy.

Last week, members of the NuSTAR Calibration Team hosted one of our semi-regular “calibration coffees” with the NuSTAR science user community. During this meeting the focus was on understanding the transition between “on-sky” science data and “occulted by the Earth” science data, specifically for bright X-ray sources. In addition, the NuSTAR team updated the science users on the continued monitoring of the science impact of the suspected tears in the MLI covers on both of the NuSTAR telescopes. The Calibration Coffee was attended by over twenty members of the science community and all of the calibration slides are now available to the large science community via the NuSTAR public GitHub pages.

Author: Elias Kammoun, Postdoctoral Scholar, Caltech<