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It truly is the summer of cosmic anniversaries.
Following the anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing and the anniversary of Space.com opening its doors to the internet, NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, the world’s most powerful X-ray telescope, is celebrating its 25th birthday today. To celebrate the observatory’s legacy, NASA has released 25 stunning, never-before-seen images of iconic astronomical objects including the Crab Nebula, Pillars of Creation, and Cassiopeia A, taking us on a breathtaking journey through the universe through the eyes of Chandra.
Chandra launched in 1999 — same year Space.com has started — aboard Space Shuttle Columbia. From its egg-shaped orbit high above Earth’s atmosphere, which takes it more than a third of the way to the moon, the observatory has led to many discoveries by recording X-rays emitted by long-dead stars, supermassive black holes and clusters of galaxies.
“For a quarter century, Chandra has been making one astonishing discovery after another,” said Pat Slane, director of the Chandra X-ray Center at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Massachusetts, in a rack“Astronomers have used Chandra to probe mysteries we didn’t even know about when we built the telescope, including exoplanets and dark energy.”
Related: The Chandra X-ray spacecraft could soon fail, putting much of astronomy at risk
Chandra is the third flagship mission in NASA’s fleet of large observatories, which will measure the infrared Spitzer Space Telescopewho retired in 2020, and the Hubble Space Telescopethat still works but still show signs of advanced age. Astronomers around the world continue to consult the observatory’s data to discern the structures and evolutions of various objects in our universe. The science has led to more than 700 doctoral dissertations, supported thousands of undergraduate, graduate and postdoctoral research careers, and resulted in about 10,000 peer-reviewed and pre-peer-reviewed papers, making it one of the most scientifically productive NASA missions in astrophysics. Demand for the telescope’s time has remained very high throughout the mission, with only 20 percent of requested time typically approved, according to a NASA Statement.
“Chandra’s images and data have inspired people of all ages to think about what we might find when we look out into space,” Ellen Stofan, undersecretary for science and exploration at the Smithsonian Institution, said in another article. rack“Chandra continues to provide us with ‘X-ray eyes’ to better understand our place in the universe.”
The latest images are a montage of 25,000 observations that Chandra has made over the past 25 years, with contributions from the Hubble Space Telescope and the James Webb Space Telescope that amplify some aspects. They highlight the dust heavy centera young star embedded in the Pillars of Creation, immensely hot gas near a growing supermassive black hole in the spiral galaxy NGC 7469, and much (much) more.
The anniversary is a mixed bag for many astronomers around the world. The Chandra Observatory faces a bleak future after NASA’s budget plan for the forecasts for the next five years cancel early the Chandra mission due to financial constraints, even though the observatory has another decade of life and stable mission costs are projected for decades to come. The decision would free up a large portion of the $68 million spent annually on the observatory and result in layoffs of astronomers whose jobs depend on its science and maintenance. Chandra’s demise would also leave the U.S. — and possibly the world — without a telescope that matches or exceeds its capabilities. More than 700 astronomers who work at the “Save Chandra“The 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,” said Lisa Kewley, director of the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian in Massachusetts, in a statement from the Smithsonian Institution.
Cassiopeia One
Cassiopeia A (Cass A), a supernova remnant about 11,000 light-years from Earth, was the first light image taken by the Chandra Observatory shortly after it began operating 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 press release.
Early observations quickly revealed powerful X-rays shooting out from Cass A’s center, giving astronomers their first look at the remnant, which is more specifically a compact neutron star. In the years that followed, astronomers used X-rays emitted from the debris to map the distribution of elements in the extremely dense and dead star, showing that the parent star may have been turned inside out when it exploded, revealing a key step in how massive stars behave as they die.
More recently, data from the observatory have been critical to solve the mystery of a bizarre, Grinch-like streak of green light winding through Cass A.
Bat Shadow (Serpent Cloud)
This image shows the Serpens Nebula, a star-forming region about 1,300 light-years from Earth. A huge bat-shaped shadow is cast across a more distant cloud, caused by the bulging planet-forming disk of a young star, not visible in the image. The shadow is enormous—it spans 200 times the diameter of our entire solar system.
In 2020, astronomers observed the shadow “fluttering like a bird’s wings” for 400 days, suspecting that this was because a planet was pulling on the disk and warping it.
Orion Nebula
This image shows newly formed stars in neon pink with white centers shining through a haze of clouds in the Orion Nebula, a large cloud in our galaxy where stars are born. Located 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
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WR stands for a “Wolf-Rayet” star, a rare class of massive stars that rapidly lose mass during a short-lived phase before exploding in a supernova.
WR 124 is about 30 times more massive than the Sun and is located 15,000 light-years away in the constellation Sagitta. The red and purple colors in the last image are dense wind clouds around the star, which may be preventing Chandra from spotting a companion neutron star in the region. The winds resemble the inside of a delicate flower with blooming petals, and the dozens of stars in white scattered around the central stars can be likened to dew on those petals.
Astronomers estimate that the star has so far ejected 10 suns’ worth of material, which is blown away from the star and cools further into space. The debris that survives the star’s death will contribute to the dust balance of the universe, providing star- and planet-forming material for the next generations of cosmic neighborhoods.
Crab Nebula
The Crab Nebulaone of the brightest supernova remnants in our sky, shines like a “neon purple mushroom” at the heart of a dense web 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 vanished star, and narrow jets shooting out from it into the abyss of space.
You can browse through the remaining 20 images released as part of Chandra’s 25th anniversary celebrations on the website of the observatory.