To celebrate the Chandra X-ray Observatory’s 25th birthday, NASA has released 25 beautiful, never-before-seen images captured by Chandra. Launched aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia on July 23, 1999, the Chandra X-ray Observatory (CXO) is one of NASA’s legendary series of “Great Observatories,” alongside the venerable Hubble Space Telescope, Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, and Spitzer Space Telescope. Like Hubble, Chandra is still working hard in space, far surpassing its original five-year mission plan. While CXO has been in space for 25 years, it owes a great debt to scientific goals dreamt up back in the 1970s. Work continued on what would ultimately become Chandra throughout the 1980s and 1990s, and it finally launched in the summer of 1999. Earlier this year, Congress voted to reduce funding for NASA and its missions, so there is significant concern that Chandra’s mission may end despite it still being fully operational. So the 25 images below are especially meaningful, as they show what sort of science — and beauty — will be lost if NASA is forced to shut down Chandra.
“For a quarter century, Chandra has made discovery after amazing discovery,” says Pat Slane, director of the Chandra X-ray Center located at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts. “Astronomers have used Chandra to investigate mysteries that we didn’t even know about when we were building the telescope — including exoplanets and dark energy.” ‘On July 23, 1999, the Chandra X-Ray Observatory was released from space shuttle Columbia’s payload bay. 25 years later, Chandra continues to make valuable discoveries about high-energy sources and phenomena across the Universe.’ | NASA Chandra enables X-ray astronomy, which helps astronomers answer the biggest mysteries of the Universe. X-rays are especially adept for observing extremely hot, energetic objects and processes in space, and many fascinating parts of space glow strongly in X-ray wavelengths, including stars, galaxies, and even planets. The 25 new Chandra images below are just 0.1% of the 25,000 observations the X-ray telescope has performed in the last quarter century. The Crab Nebula is the result of a bright supernova explosion witnessed by Chinese and other astronomers in 1054 A.D. Chandra sees the rings around the pulsar and the jets blasting into space. X-rays from Chandra (blue-violet and white) and IXPE (purple); optical from Hubble (red, green, and blue) One of the closest regions of star formation to Earth, newly-formed stars in the Orion Nebula are detected by Chandra. X-rays from Chandra (magenta) and infrared from Webb (red, green, and blue) This system contains a pair of merging galaxies in the Virgo Cluster and the multimillion-degree gas emits X-rays detected by Chandra. X-rays from Chandra (purple); optical from ESO (red, green, blue)
The Cat’s Paw is a nebula where stars are forming in the Milky Way galaxy. X-rays from Chandra show populations of young stars. X-rays from Chandra (purple); optical and H-alpha from ESO/MPG (red, green, and blue); infrared from Spitzer (red, green, and blue) The center of our Milky Way is blocked by gas and dust in many types of light, but X-rays can penetrate and reveal threads of superheated gas and bursts from our galaxy’s supermassive black hole. X-rays from Chandra (orange, green, blue, and purple); radio image from MeerKAT (lilac) This region of star formation contains the Pillars of Creation, which was made famous by the Hubble Space Telescope. Chandra detects X-rays from young stars in the region, including one embedded in a pillar. X-rays from Chandra (red and blue); infrared image from Webb (red, green, and blue) A young star with a planet forming disk is casting a shadow in the shape of a bat across a more distant cloud behind it. X-rays from Chandra (purple); optical image from Hubble (red, green, and blue) NGC 7469 is a spiral galaxy, seen face on, that contains a growing supermassive black hole. Chandra shows hot gas near the black hole. X-rays from Chandra (purple); optical/IR from Hubble (red, green, and blue); infrared image from Webb (red, green, and blue) Hot gas detected by Chandra is being pulled away from this elliptical galaxy as it moves through a galaxy cluster at about three million miles per hour. X-rays from Chandra (purple) and XMM-Newton (blue); optical images from Digitized Sky Survey (red, green, and blue) and Palomar (red, green, and blue) WR 124 is a rare type of Wolf-Rayet star, a bright, massive star experiencing a short-lived phase in its evolution. A dense wind from the star may prevent the detection with Chandra of a neutron star companion. X-rays from Chandra (purple); infrared from Herschel, Spitzer, WISE (blue) and Webb (red, green, and blue)
This supernova remnant, the debris from an exploded star, shows a bright nebula in the center surrounded by a much larger diffuse cloud of X-rays. X-rays from Chandra (purple and orange); infrared from Spitzer (yellow); radio from VLA (yellow) At the center of the Centaurus A galaxy is a supermassive black hole that sends enormous jets out into space, which are detected by Chandra. X-rays from Chandra (red, green, blue) and IXPE (red, green, and blue); optical from ESO/MPG 2.2m (red, green, and blue) The Cassiopeia A supernova remnant has been observed for more than 2 million seconds since the start of the Chandra mission in 1999. X-rays from Chandra (blue); infrared from Webb (orange, white, and blue) NGC 3532 (also called the “Wishing Well Cluster”) is a cluster of middle-aged stars — about 300 million years old — that covers nearly twice the size of the full Moon on the sky. X-rays from Chandra (purple and white); optical from ESO/MPG 2.2m (red, green, and blue) The barred spiral galaxy NGC 6872 is interacting with a smaller galaxy to the upper left. The smaller galaxy has likely stripped gas from NGC 6872 to feed the supermassive black hole in its center. X-rays from Chandra (purple); optical from Hubble (red, green, and blue) Planetary nebula HB 5, an end phase of a Sun-like star, was discovered by famous astronomer Edwin Hubble. X-rays from hot gas in HB 5 are detected by Chandra. X-rays from Chandra (blue and white); optical from Hubble (red, purple, blue); radio image from ALMA (yellow and white) There are several clouds of superheated gas, seen by Chandra, that are merging in the Abell 2125 galaxy cluster. X-rays from Chandra (purple and white); optical from Kitt Peak (gold)
Astronomers nicknamed this region of star formation the “Cosmic Cliffs,” which is found in the nearby Carina Nebula. X-rays from young stars in two clusters are detected by Chandra. X-rays from Chandra (purple); infrared from Webb (yellow, green, cyan, and blue) This spiral galaxy contains a supermassive black hole and stars rapidly forming in its center. Chandra sees X-rays from gas near the massive black hole and from smaller black holes or neutron stars pulling material from companion stars. X-rays from Chandra (blue); optical from VLT (yellow and blue); infrared from Webb (red, green, and blue) Pulsar wind nebulas like MSH 15-52 are clouds of energetic particles, producing X-rays, that are driven away from dead collapsed stars. X-rays from Chandra (gold and blue); infrared from the Dark Energy Camera KPNO Blanco 4.0m (red and blue) Chandra observations of Arp 220 give insight into what happens when two galaxies about the size of the Milky Way collide. X-rays from Chandra (purple); optical and infrared from Hubble (red, green, and blue) The fifth planet from the Sun and largest in the Solar System and known to have X-ray-producing aurora around its poles. X-rays from Chandra (purple); infrared from Hubble (red, green, and blue) NGC 1850 is a bright, double star cluster that lies in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small neighbor galaxy to the Milky Way. It contains a black hole with a mass of about 11 Suns, and a companion star. No clear detection of X-rays with Chandra implies that the black hole is not quickly pulling material away from its companion. X-rays from Chandra (magenta); optical from Hubble (red, yellow, green, cyan, blue); infrared from Spitzer (red) Galaxy clusters like MACS J0035 are the largest structures in the Universe held together by gravity. They contain huge amounts of hot gas that produces X-rays seen with X-ray telescopes like Chandra. X-rays from Chandra (purple); optical from Hubble (gold)
The supernova explosion that created this object was first observed on Earth in February 1987. Chandra sees X-rays produced by debris from the explosion. X-rays from Chandra (purple); optical and infrared from Hubble (red, green, blue); infrared from Webb (red, green, and blue) NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center manages the Chandra program, while the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory’s Chandra X-ray Center handles scientific operations in Cambridge, Massachusetts and flight operations in Burlington, Massachusetts. Northrup Grumman in Redondo Beach, California, was the primary contractor for building the spacecraft. Image credits: NASA/SAO/CXC. Image captions courtesy of NASA Chandra X-ray Observatory team.
