NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory Celebrates 15th Anniversary

via nasa.gov

NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory was launched into space aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia on July 23, 1999.

Chandra, one of NASA’s current “Great Observatories,” along with the Hubble Space Telescope and Spitzer Space Telescope, is specially designed to detect X-ray emission from hot and energetic regions of the universe.

With its superb sensitivity and resolution, Chandra has observed objects ranging from the closest planets and comets to the most distant known quasars. It has imaged the remains of exploded stars, or supernova remnants, observed the region around the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way, and discovered black holes across the universe. Chandra also has made a major advance in the study of dark matter by tracing the separation of dark matter from normal matter in collisions between galaxy clusters. It is also contributing to research on the nature of dark energy.

Chandra orbits far above Earth’s X-ray absorbing atmosphere at an altitude up to 139,000 km (86,500 mi), allowing for long observations unobscured by Earth’s shadow. When it was carried into space in 1999, it was the largest satellite ever launched by the shuttle.]

The fastest moving pulsar ever seen?

Researchers using three different telescopes – NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and ESA's XMM-Newton in space, and the Parkes radio telescope in Australia – may have found the fastest moving pulsar ever seen.

Wide-field composite image of SNR MSH 11-61A and IGR J11014-6103. XMM-Newton data (purple) contains the supernova remnant. Credit (for this and the following images): X-ray: NASA/CXC/UC Berkeley/J.Tomsick et al & ESA/XMM-Newton, Optical: DSS; IR: 2MASS/UMass/IPAC-Caltech/NASA/NSF

All about NuSTAR

A small X-ray telescope was boosted into orbit by an air-launched Pegasus XL rocket Wednesday, June 13, 2012, the first step in an ambitious low-cost mission to study supermassive black holes believed to be lurking at the cores of galaxies like Earth's Milky Way and to probe the creation of heavy elements in the cataclysmic death throes of massive stars.

Artist's concept of NuSTAR on orbit. NuSTAR has a 10-m (30') mast that deploys after launch to separate the optics modules (right) from the detectors in the focal plane (left). The spacecraft, which controls NuSTAR's pointings, and the solar panels are with the focal plane. NuSTAR has two identical optics modules in order to increase sensitivity. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

A Star Turns Inside Out

NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has mapped the debris of a supernova and discovered that the explosion may have turned the original star inside out. Peering into the heart of the inverted star, astronomers have found the atoms of life itself.

Credit: Science@NASA