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.”
