To commemorate the 10th anniversary of Chandra, three new versions of classic Chandra images will be released during the next three months. These images, the first of which is available Thursday, provide new data and a more complete view of objects that Chandra observed in earlier stages of its mission. The image being released today is of E0102-72, the spectacular remains of an exploded star.
"The Great Observatories program -- of which Chandra is a major part -- shows how astronomers need as many tools as possible to tackle the big questions out there," said Ed Weiler, associate administrator of NASA's Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. NASA's other "Great Observatories" are theHubble Space Telescope, Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory and Spitzer Space Telescope.
The next image will be released in August to highlight the anniversary of when Chandra opened up for the first time and gathered light on its detectors. The third image will be released during "Chandra's First Decade of Discovery" symposium in Boston, which begins Sept. 22.
"I am extremely proud of the tremendous team of people who worked so hard to make Chandra a success," said Harvey Tananbaum, director of the Chandra X-ray Center at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Mass. "It has taken partners at NASA, industry and academia to make Chandra the crown jewel of high-energy astrophysics."
Tananbaum and Nobel Prize winner Riccardo Giacconi originally proposed Chandra to NASA in 1976. Unlike the Hubble Space Telescope, Chandra is in a highly elliptical orbit that takes it almost one third of the way to the moon, and was not designed to be serviced after it was deployed.
Marshall manages the Chandra program for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory controls science and flight operations from the Chandra X-ray Center.
This motion graphic combines images of the supernova remnant E0102 with an animation of a three dimensional model for this object. It begins with the Chandra X-ray image of E0102, then dissolves to a so-called "velocity map" that shows material moving away from us (in red) and towards us (in blue). A cylinder-shaped model for E0102 is then shown, along with two smaller, faster moving regions. The model then dissolves back into the velocity map and the Chandra data.
(Photo Credit: NASA/STScI/G.Bacon; X-ray: NASA/CXC/MIT/D.Dewey et al. & NASA/CXC/SAO/J.DePasquale)
To commemorate the 10th anniversary of Chandra, this new image of the supernova remnant known as E0102 is being released. First observed with Chandra shortly after its launch in 1999, this new version gives astronomers a much more detailed look at the debris of this exploded star.
(Photo Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/MIT/D.Dewey et al. & NASA/CXC/SAO/J.DePasquale; Optical: NASA/STScI)
Source: Chandra X-ray Center