It truly is the summer of cosmic birthdays.
Following the anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing and the anniversary of Space.com’s Internet launch, NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, the world’s most powerful X-ray telescope, turns 25 today. And to celebrate the observatory’s legacy, NASA has released 25 exquisite, never-before-seen images of iconic astronomical objects like the Crab Nebula, the Pillars of Creation, and Cassiopeia A that take us on a breathtaking journey through the universe through Chandra’s eyes.
Chandra launched in 1999 — the same year Space.com has started — aboard the space shuttle Columbia. From its egg-shaped orbit above Earth’s atmosphere that takes it more than a third of the way to the Moon, the observatory has made many discoveries by recording X-ray emissions from long-dead stars, supermassive black holes, and galaxy clusters.
“For a quarter century, Chandra has made one astonishing discovery after another,” Pat Slane, director of the Chandra X-ray Center at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Massachusetts, said in a statement. statement“Astronomers have used Chandra to investigate mysteries we didn’t even know existed when we built the telescope, including exoplanets and dark energy.”
Related: Chandra X-ray spacecraft could soon shut down, threatening much of astronomy
Chandra is the third flagship mission in NASA’s fleet of large observatories, after the infrared mission Spitzer Space Telescopewho retired in 2020, and the The Hubble Space Telescopewhich still works but continues to show signs of advanced ageAstronomers around the world continue to access the observatory’s data to discern the structures and evolutions of diverse objects in our universe. Its science has spawned more than 700 doctoral dissertations, supported thousands of undergraduate and graduate research careers, and produced approximately 10,000 peer-reviewed and pre-peer-reviewed papers, making it one of NASA’s most scientifically productive missions in astrophysics. Demand for telescope time remained very high throughout the mission, with only 20 percent of the requested time typically approved, according to a NASA report. NASA Statement.
“Chandra’s images and data have inspired people of all ages to think about what we might find when we look into space,” Ellen Stofan, undersecretary for science and research at the Smithsonian Institution, said in a separate article. statement“Chandra continues to provide ‘X-ray eyes’ to help us 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 that enhance some aspects of them. They highlight the very dusty centera young star integrated into the The Pillars of Creation, extremely hot gas near a growing supermassive black hole in the spiral galaxy NGC 7469, and much more.
Happy 25th birthday, Chandra! 🥳 25 new images to celebrate our special day, from nearby supernova remnants to galaxy clusters over 10 billion light-years away! Check them all out: https://t.co/8tqJTvR7Dn #Chandra25 pic.twitter.com/8X4w2nMfzYJuly 23, 2024
This anniversary is a bittersweet moment for many astronomers around the world. The Chandra Observatory faces a bleak future after NASA’s Budget Plan forecasts for the next five years cancel prematurely The Chandra mission was abandoned due to financial constraints, even though the observatory still has a decade of life left and mission costs are flat for decades to come. The move would free up much of the $68 million spent annually on the observatory and lead to the layoffs of astronomers whose jobs depend on its science and maintenance. Chandra’s demise would also leave the United States—and perhaps the world—without a telescope that can match or surpass the capabilities of this observatory. More than 700 astronomers who formed the “Save Chandra“The coalition continues to urge NASA to reconsider its 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. Smithsonian Institution Statement.
Cassiopeia A
Cassiopeia A (Cass A), a supernova remnant about 11,000 light-years from Earth, was the first bright image from the Chandra Observatory shortly after its deployment in 1999. The observatory has since observed the glowing ball of matter and energy for more than 2 million seconds, or 23 days, NASA notes in a statement. Press release.
Early observations quickly revealed powerful X-rays coming from Cass A’s center, giving astronomers their first view of the remnant, which is more accurately a compact neutron star. Over the next few years, astronomers used the X-rays emitted by the debris to map the distribution of elements in the extremely dense, dead star, which showed that the original star may have flipped over when it exploded, revealing an important step in how massive stars behave when they die.
More recently, data from the observatory has been essential for solve the mystery of a strange green glow similar to that of a Grinch that was spotted snaking across Cass A.
The Shadow of the Bat (Cloud of Snakes)
This image shows the Serpent Nebula, a star-forming region about 1,300 light-years from Earth. A huge bat-shaped shadow is cast on a more distant cloud, created by the planet-forming disk of a young star, which is not shown in the image. The shadow is enormous: it spans 200 times the diameter of our entire solar system.
In 2020, astronomers noticed that the shadow “flapped like a bird’s wings” for 400 days, thanks to what they suspected was a planet pulling on the disk and distorting it.
Orion Nebula
In this image, newly formed stars are visible in neon pink with a bright white center through a haze of 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 is also visible to the naked eye under dark skies.
WR 124
WR stands for Wolf-Rayet star, a rare class of massive stars that rapidly lose mass during a short phase before exploding in a supernova event.
WR 124 is about 30 times heavier than the Sun and lies 15,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation Sagitta. The reds and purples in the last image are dense wind clouds around the star, which could prevent Chandra from spotting a companion neutron star in the region. The winds look like the inside of a delicate flower with petals opening, 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 lost the equivalent of 10 suns of material, which is being carried away by the wind and cooling further into space. The debris that survives the star’s death will add to the universe’s dust budget and provide material for the formation of stars and planets in future generations of cosmic neighborhoods.
Crab Nebula
THE Crab NebulaOne of the brightest supernova remnants in our sky, glows like a “neon purple mushroom cloud” at the heart of a dense network of filaments spewed out by a massive star as it died. The new Chandra image reveals in exquisite detail the rings around the white pulsar, a bright remnant of the departed star, and the narrow jets that extend away from it into the abyss of space.
You can browse the remaining 20 images released as part of Chandra’s 25th anniversary on the observatory website.