Chandra
Full Name: Chandra X-Ray Observatory
Phase: Operating
Launch Date: July 23, 1999
Mission Project Home Page: http://chandra.harvard.edu/index.html
Program(s): Physics of the Cosmos
NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, which was launched and deployed by Space Shuttle Columbia on July 23, 1999, is the most sophisticated X-ray observatory built to date. Since the Earth's atmosphere absorbs the vast majority of X-rays, they are not detectable from Earth-based telescopes, requiring a space-based telescope to make these observations. Chandra will answer many questions about the high-energy universe, and will enable scientists to pose new questions about the universe.
Chandra is designed to observe X-rays from high-energy regions of the universe, such as the remnants of exploded stars. Chandra’s instruments have approximately fifty times better resolution (pixel area fifty or more times smaller) than the High Resolution Imager on the Rosat Observatory. Chandra images reveal new details about phenomena in our Universe. Scientists can now see rings and jets in the region around a pulsar, like the one in the Crab Nebula supernova remnant. This level of detail can provide valuable information for understanding how the pulsar transmits energy to the nebula as a whole.
NASA's premier X-ray observatory was named the Chandra X-ray Observatory in honor of the late Indian-American Nobel laureate, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (pronounced: su/bra/mon'/yon chandra/say/kar). Known to the world as Chandra (which means "moon" or "luminous" in Sanskrit), he was widely regarded as one of the foremost astrophysicists of the twentieth century.
This extraordinarily deep Chandra image shows Casseiopeia A (Cas A, for short), the youngest supernova remnant in the Milky Way. New analysis shows that this supernova remnant acts like a relativistic pinball machine by accelerating electrons to enormous energies. The blue, wispy arcs in the image show where the acceleration is taking place in an expanding shock wave generated by the explosion. The red and green regions show material from the destroyed star that has been heated to millions of degrees by the explosion.
Image credit: NASA/CXC/UMass Amherst/M.D.Stage et al.
