Today, July 23, marks the 25th anniversary of one of NASA’s lesser known but highly prolific space telescopes. The Chandra X-ray Observatory was launched on July 23, 1999, and over its tenure has produced hundreds of stunning images of space — including 25 new images that have been released to celebrate the occasion.
Unlike Hubble, which looks primarily at the same wavelengths as the human eye (called the optical or visible light range), or James Webb, which looks in the infrared, Chandra operates in the X-ray portion of the spectrum. That allows it to see effects of high-energy events like kilonovas, and to investigate objects like supermassive black holes. It also gives different views of supernovas and the remnants they leave behind.
The ability to detect X-rays makes Chandra important for scientific discoveries as well. “For a quarter century, Chandra has made discovery after amazing discovery,” said Pat Slane, director of the Chandra X-ray Center. “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.”
The gorgeous set of new images includes objects like nebulae, galaxies, and even a shot of Jupiter here in our own solar system. You can see a large version of the images here, and refer to the labelled version above to see what you are looking at. Many of these images combine data from Chandra with data from other telescopes, like Hubble, Webb, or Spitzer. These telescopes provide the background views of the stars, while Chandra shows the X-rays visible in these scenes, often in shades of purple and magenta.
There are some familiar sights in there for space fans, who will recognize objects like the famous Pillars of Creation or Cassiopeia A. Previous releases from Chandra have combined its data with famous images taken by Webb, adding an extra element that can only be seen in the X-ray wavelength.
“Chandra has been a great success story for humanity and its pursuit of knowledge,” said Andrew Schnell, acting project manager of NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. “Chandra’s incredible accomplishments are made possible by the team’s hard work and dedication.”
After 13 suborbital test flights and more than $15 billion in development costs, SpaceX's Starship has finally reached orbit. The 407-foot megarocket, the most powerful ever built, lifted off from Starbase, Texas, on Monday and delivered its first real payload on it's 14th attempt. The celebration came with an asterisk, though, since SpaceX had to cut the planned 10-hour mission to roughly three hours.
https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/2104601695711904180
SpaceX is finally ready to give Starship its biggest test yet. The company says the massive rocket's 14th test flight is scheduled for September 22, when it will attempt to put the upper stage into Earth orbit for the first time. The launch is currently pending regulatory approval, with a 75-minute window opening at 7:15 a.m. CT.
Starship has 26 Starlink satellites to deliver
For decades, humanity has looked up at the Moon and wondered what it would be like to live on it. Think sprawling cities, factories, research centers, and permanent human settlements. Unfortunately, there is one fairly fundamental problem with that vision.
A new study published in Frontiers in Space Technologies argues that even the Moon's potentially enormous reserves of frozen water may be nowhere near enough to support city-sized populations sustainably. Researchers Martin Elvis and Jonathan McDowell estimate that the permanently shadowed regions near the lunar poles could contain roughly one billion tons of water. It sounds like an extraordinary amount until you put a million thirsty humans next to it.