QUICK FACTS
Size:
45.3 feet long x 64.0 feet wide (solar arrays deployed)
Weight:
10,560 pounds
Life:
Minimum 5 years
Orbit:
6,000 x 86,400 miles, 64-hour period per orbit
Link to the Chandra X-ray Observatory:
http://chandra.nasa.gov
NASAColor composite of the supernova remnant E0102-72 (Credits: X-ray (NASA/CXC/SAO); optical (NASA/HST); radio: (ACTA)
DID YOU KNOW?
The Chandra X-ray Observatory is the world’s most powerful X-ray telescope. It has eight-times greater resolution and will be able to detect sources more than 20-times fainter than any previous X-ray telescope.
The Chandra X-ray Observatory, with its Inertial Upper Stage and support equipment, is the largest and heaviest payload ever launched by the Space Shuttle.
The Chandra X-ray Observatory’s operating orbit takes it 200-times higher than the Hubble Space Telescope. During each orbit of the Earth, Chandra travels one-third of the way to the Moon.
The Chandra X-ray Observatory’s resolving power is - 0.5 arc-seconds — equal to the ability to read the letters of a stop sign at a distance of 12 miles.
NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory is about one-billion times more powerful than the first X-ray telescope, and we have made that leap in slightly more than three decades.
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THE CHANDRA X-RAY OBSERVATORY
To the human eye, space appears serene and void. It is neither.
To the “eye” of an X-ray telescope, the universe is totally different - a violent, vibrant, and ever-changing place. Temperatures can reach millions of degrees. Objects are accelerated by gravity to nearly the speed of light and magnetic fields more than a trillion times stronger than the Earth’s cause some stars to crack and tremble.
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Milky Way Center
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NASA’s newest space telescope, called the Chandra X-ray Observatory, will allow scientists from around the world to obtain unprecedented X-ray images of these and other exotic environments to help understand the structure and evolution of the universe. The observatory will not only help to probe these mysteries, but also will serve as a unique tool to study detailed physics in a laboratory that cannot be replicated here on earth - the universe itself. NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory has every prospect of rewriting textbooks and helping technology advance in the coming decade.
The Chandra X-ray Observatory will provide unique and crucial information on the nature of objects ranging from comets in our solar system to quasars at the edge of the observable universe. The observatory should provide long-sought answers to some major scientific questions, such as:
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The Crab Nebula
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- What and where is the “Dark Matter” in our universe? The largest and most massive objects in the universe are galaxy clusters - enormous collections of galaxies, some like our own. These galaxies are bound together into a cluster by gravity. Much of their mass is in the form of an incredibly hot, X-ray emitting gas that fills the entire space between the galaxies. Yet, neither the mass of the galaxies, nor the mass of the hot X-ray gas is enough to provide the gravity that we know holds the cluster together. X-ray observations with the Chandra X-ray Observatory will map the location of the dark matter and help us to identify it.
- What is the powerhouse driving the explosive activity in many distant galaxies? The centers of many distant galaxies are incredible sources of energy and radiation - especially X-rays. Scientists theorize that massive black holes are at the center of these active galaxies, gobbling up any material - even a whole star - that passes too close. Detailed studies with the Chandra X-ray Observatory can probe the faintest of these active galaxies, and study not only how their energy output changes with time, but also how these objects produce their intense energy emissions in the first place.
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A supernova remnant
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Since X-rays are absorbed by the Earth’s atmosphere, space-based observatories are necessary to study these phenomena. To meet this scientific challenge, the Chandra X-ray Observatory, NASA’s most powerful X-ray telescope, was launched in July 1999. Complementing two other space observatories now orbiting Earth - the Hubble Space Telescope and the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory - this observatory studies X-rays rather than visible light or gamma rays. By capturing images created by these invisible rays, the observatory will allow scientists to analyze some of the greatest mysteries of the universe.
Named in honor of the late Indian-American Nobel Laureate Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, the observatory was formerly known as the Advance X-ray Astrophysics Facility. The Chandra X-ray Observatory was carried into low Earth orbit by the Space Shuttle Columbia. The observatory was deployed from the shuttle’s cargo bay at 155 miles above the Earth. Two firings of an attached Inertial Upper Stage rocket and several firings of its own on-board rocket motors after separating from the Inertial Upper Stage placed the observatory into its working orbit.
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Cassiopeia A
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Unlike the Hubble Space Telescope’s circular orbit that is relatively close to the Earth, the Chandra X-ray Observatory was placed in a highly elliptical (oval-shaped) orbit. At its closest approach to Earth, the observatory will be at an altitude of about 6,000 miles. At its farthest, 86,400 miles, it travels almost one-third of the way to the Moon. Due to this elliptical orbit, the observatory circles the Earth every 64 hours, carrying it far outside the belts of radiation that surround our planet. This radiation, while harmless to life on Earth, can overwhelm the observatory’s sensitive instruments. The X-ray observatory is outside this radiation long enough to take 55 hours of uninterrupted observations during each orbit. During periods of interference from Earth’s radiation belts, scientific observations are not taken.
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