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Ultraluminous X-Ray Sources in External Galaxies Catalog

Metadata Updated: September 19, 2025

This table is a catalog of ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) in external galaxies, where ULXs have been defined as compact, off-nuclear X-ray sources with X-ray luminosities in the range of 10<sup>39</sup> - 10<sup>41</sup> erg/s. The aim of this catalog is to provide easy access to the properties of ULXs, their possible counterparts at other wavelengths (optical, IR, and radio), and the properties of their host galaxies. The catalog contains 229 ULXs found in 85 galaxies which had been reported in the astronomy literature as of April 2004. Most ULXs are stellar-mass-black hole X-ray binaries, but it cannot be excluded that some ULXs might be intermediate-mass black holes. A small fraction of the candidate ULXs might be background Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) or Supernova Remnants (SNRs). ULXs with luminosity above 10<sup>40</sup> erg/s are found in both starburst galaxies and in the halos of early-type galaxies. Some notes on individual galaxies and/or ULXs in this catalog can be found in the file <a href="https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/ftp/cats/J/A+A/429/1125/notes.dat">https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/ftp/cats/J/A+A/429/1125/notes.dat</a>; which is available at the CDS. This table was created by the HEASARC in January 2005, based on CDS tables J/A+A/429/1125/table1a.dat and table1b.dat. It was updated in September 2012 to correct an error in the declination signs of the NGC 253 objects. This is a service provided by NASA HEASARC .

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

Downloads & Resources

Dates

Metadata Created Date April 11, 2025
Metadata Updated Date September 19, 2025

Metadata Source

Harvested from NASA Data.json

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date April 11, 2025
Metadata Updated Date September 19, 2025
Publisher High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center
Maintainer
Identifier ivo://nasa.heasarc/ulxrbcat
Data Last Modified 2025-09-10
Category Astrophysics
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 026:00
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id e97d2d14-776c-4003-bc95-0ff9b54a38d4
Harvest Source Id 58f92550-7a01-4f00-b1b2-8dc953bd598f
Harvest Source Title NASA Data.json
Homepage URL https://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/W3Browse/all/ulxrbcat.html
Program Code 026:000
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash 77f9dd10dd990fc1911701f4cd8ca4a9862a8ec5dd9f51ae5f82c3525ce25346
Source Schema Version 1.1

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