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It really is the summer of Cosmic anniversaries.
Following the anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing and Space.com opening its doors to the internet, NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, the world’s most powerful X-ray telescope, turns 25 today – and to the legacy of the observatory celebrate, NASA. He has released 25 exquisite, never-before-seen images of iconic astronomical objects such as the Crab Nebula, the Pillars of Creation and Cassiopeia A that take us on a fascinating journey through the universe through Chandra’s eyes.
Chandra launched in 1999 – the same year Space.com started — aboard Space Shuttle Columbia. From its oval orbit high above Earth’s atmosphere that takes it more than one-third of the way to the moon, the observatory has made many discoveries by recording x-ray emissions from long dead stars, black holes giants and clusters of galaxies.
“For a quarter of a century, Chandra has made discovery after amazing discovery,” said Pat Slane, director of the Chandra X-ray Center located at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Massachusetts, in a. statement. “Astronomers have used Chandra to explore mysteries we didn’t even know about when we built the telescope—including exoplanets and dark energy.”
Related: Chandra’s X-ray spacecraft may soon go dark, posing a major threat to astronomy
Chandra is the third flagship mission in NASA’s Fleet of Great Observatory, after the infrared Spitzer Space Telescopewho retired in 2020, and the Hubble Space Telescopewhich is still working but continues to showing signs of advanced age. Astronomers around the world continue to access the observatory’s data to identify the structures and evolutions of various objects in our Universe. There are more than 700 Ph.D. theses, supported thousands of undergraduate, graduate and postdoctoral research careers, and resulted in approximately 10,000 peer-reviewed and preliminary peer-reviewed papers, making it one of NASA’s most scientifically productive missions in astrophysics. Demand for the telescope’s time remained very high throughout the mission, with only 20 percent of the time requested typically being approved, according to NASA statement.
“Chandra’s imagery and data have inspired people of all ages to think about what we can find when we look up into outer space,” said Ellen Stofan, Assistant Secretary for Science and Research at the Smithsonian Institution, in another . statement. “Chandra continues to provide ‘X-ray eyes’ to allow us to better understand our place in the universe.”
The latest images are a montage of 25,000 observations made by Chandra over the past quarter century, with contributions from the Hubble Space Telescope and the James Webb Space Telescope adding some features. They emphasize our galaxies dust-heavy centera young star embedded in the Pillars of Creation, extremely hot gas near a growing supermassive black hole in the spiral galaxy NGC 7469, and much (much) more.
The anniversary is bittersweet for many astronomers around the world. The Chandra observatory faces a bleak future after that NASA budget plan forecasts for the next five years canceled prematurely Chandra mission due to financial constraints despite the observatory having ten years of life left and stable mission costs projected in the coming years. The decision would free up much of the $68 million spent on the observatory each year and would lay off astronomers whose jobs depend on its science and maintenance. The end of Chandra would also leave the United States – and possibly the world – without a telescope that would mirror or surpass the capabilities of this observatory. More than 700 astronomers founded the “Save Chandra” A coalition continues to urge NASA to reconsider the decision.
“Chandra is a living legacy that we hope will continue to help us explore the universe for years to come,” Lisa Kewley, director of the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian in Massachusetts, said in a statement from the Smithsonian Institution.
Cassiopeia A
Cassiopeia A (Cas A), a supernova remnant about 11,000 light-years from Earth, was the Chandra observatory’s first light image soon after its deployment in 1999. The observatory has observed the large ball of matter and energy since since then. 2 million seconds, or 23 days, ago, NASA notes in a news release.
Early observations quickly showed that powerful X-rays were bursting from the center of Cas A and astronomers took their first look at the remnant, which is the core of a neutron star. In the following years, astronomers used X-rays beaming from the debris to map the distribution of elements in the extremely dense and dead star, revealing that the original star may have turned inside out as it exploded, marking an important step in the size of stars. behave as they die.
Later, data from the observatory was crucial to solve the mystery of a strange grinch-like green light seen crawling through Cass A.
Shadow Bat (Cloud Serpens)
This image shows the Serpens Nebula, a star-forming region about 1,300 light-years from Earth. A huge bat-shaped shadow is cast over a more distant cloud, created by the puffy planet-forming disk of a young star, not visible in the image. The shadow is huge – it spans 200 times the diameter of our entire solar system.
In 2020, astronomers noticed that the shadow was “beating like the wings of a bird” over 400 days, thanks to what they suspected was a planet pulling on the disk and feeding it.
Orion Nebula
In this image, newborn stars are seen in neon pink with white centers shining through clouds in the Orion Nebula, a large cloud within our galaxy where stars are born. At 1,500 light-years away, the nebula is one of the closest star-forming regions to Earth and can be seen by the unaided eye under dark skies.
WR 124
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WR stands for “Wolf-Rayet” stars, a rare class of massive stars that rapidly lose mass during a short period before exploding in a supernova event.
WR 124 is about 30 times more massive than the sun and lies 15,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation Sagitta. The reds and purples in the latest image are dense clouds of wind around the star, which may be preventing Chandra from seeing a neutron star companion in the region. The winds are like the inside of a delicate flower with blooming petals, and the dozens of white stars scattered around the central stars could be compared to dew on those petals.
Astronomers estimate that the star has so far consumed 10 suns worth of material, which is blown away from the star and cools further out into space. The debris that survives the star’s death will add to the universe’s dust budget and provide star and planet-forming material for future generations of cosmic neighbors.
The Crab Nebula
The IS The Crab Nebula, one of the brightest supernova remnants in our sky, shining like a “purple neon mushroom” at the heart of a dense web of filaments thrown out by a massive star during its death. The new image from Chandra reveals in exquisite detail the rings around the white pulsar, a bright remnant of the bygone star, and narrow jets blasting from it into the blackness of space.
You can browse through the remaining 20 images released as part of Chandra’s 25th anniversary on the observatory website.