Members Can Post Anonymously On This Site
-
Similar Topics
-
By NASA
To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video
The guitar shape in the “Guitar Nebula” comes from bubbles blown by particles ejected from the pulsar through a steady wind as it moves through space. A movie of Chandra (red) data taken in 2000, 2006, 2012, and 2021 has been combined with a single image in optical light from Palomar. X-rays from Chandra show a filament of energetic matter and antimatter particles, about two light-years long, blasting away from the pulsar (seen as the bright white dot). The movie shows how this filament has changed over two decades. X-ray: NASA/CXC/Stanford Univ./M. de Vries et al.; Optical full field: Palomar Obs./Caltech & inset: NASA/ESA/STScI; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare) Normally found only in heavy metal bands or certain post-apocalyptic films, a “flame-throwing guitar” has now been spotted moving through space. Astronomers have captured movies of this extreme cosmic object using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and Hubble Space Telescope.
The new movie of Chandra (red) and Palomar (blue) data helps break down what is playing out in the Guitar Nebula. X-rays from Chandra show a filament of energetic matter and antimatter particles, about two light-years or 12 trillion miles long, blasting away from the pulsar (seen as the bright white dot connected to the filament).
Astronomers have nicknamed the structure connected to the pulsar PSR B2224+65 as the “Guitar Nebula” because of its distinct resemblance to the instrument in glowing hydrogen light. The guitar shape comes from bubbles blown by particles ejected from the pulsar through a steady wind. Because the pulsar is moving from the lower right to the upper left, most of the bubbles were created in the past as the pulsar moved through a medium with variations in density.
X-ray: NASA/CXC/Stanford Univ./M. de Vries et al.; Optical: (Hubble) NASA/ESA/STScI and (Palomar) Hale Telescope/Palomar/CalTech; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare At the tip of the guitar is the pulsar, a rapidly rotating neutron star left behind after the collapse of a massive star. As it hurtles through space it is pumping out a flame-like filament of particles and X-ray light that astronomers have captured with Chandra.
How does space produce something so bizarre? The combination of two extremes — fast rotation and high magnetic fields of pulsars — leads to particle acceleration and high-energy radiation that creates matter and antimatter particles, as electron and positron pairs. In this situation, the usual process of converting mass into energy, famously determined by Albert Einstein’s E = mc2 equation, is reversed. Here, energy is being converted into mass to produce the particles.
Particles spiraling along magnetic field lines around the pulsar create the X-rays that Chandra detects. As the pulsar and its surrounding nebula of energetic particles have flown through space, they have collided with denser regions of gas. This allows the most energetic particles to escape the confines of the Guitar Nebula and fly to the right of the pulsar, creating the filament of X-rays. When those particles escape, they spiral around and flow along magnetic field lines in the interstellar medium, that is, the space in between stars.
The new movie shows the pulsar and the filament flying towards the upper left of the image through Chandra data taken in 2000, 2006, 2012 and 2021. The movie has the same optical image in each frame, so it does not show changes in parts of the “guitar.” A separate movie obtained with data from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope (obtained in 1994, 2001, 2006, and 2021) shows the motion of the pulsar and the smaller structures around it.
To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video
Hubble Space Telescope data: 1994, 2001, 2006, and 2021.X-ray: NASA/CXC/Stanford Univ./M. de Vries et al.; Optical full field: Palomar Obs./Caltech & inset: NASA/ESA/STScI; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare) A study of this data has concluded that the variations that drive the formation of bubbles in the hydrogen nebula, which forms the outline of the guitar, also control changes in how many particles escape to the right of the pulsar, causing subtle brightening and fading of the X-ray filament, like a cosmic blow torch shooting from the tip of the guitar.
The structure of the filament teaches astronomers about how electrons and positrons travel through the interstellar medium. It also provides an example of how this process is injecting electrons and positrons into the interstellar medium.
A paper describing these results was published in The Astrophysical Journal and is available here.
NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center manages the Chandra program. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory’s Chandra X-ray Center controls science operations from Cambridge, Massachusetts, and flight operations from Burlington, Massachusetts.
Read more from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory.
Learn more about the Chandra X-ray Observatory and its mission here:
https://www.nasa.gov/chandra
https://chandra.si.edu
Visual Description:
This release features two short videos and a labeled composite image, all featuring what can be described as a giant flame-throwing guitar floating in space.
In both the six second multiwavelength Guitar Nebula timelapse video and the composite image, the guitar shape appears at our lower left, with the neck of the instrument pointing toward our upper left. The guitar shape is ghostly and translucent, resembling a wispy cloud on a dark night. At the end of the neck, the guitar’s headstock comes to a sharp point that lands on a bright white dot. This dot is a pulsar, and the guitar shape is a hydrogen nebula. The nebula was formed when particles being ejected by the pulsar produced a cloud of bubbles. The bubbles were then blown into a curvy guitar shape by a steady wind. The guitar shape is undeniable, and is traced by a thin white line in the labeled composite image.
The pulsar, known as PSR B2224+65, has also released a long filament of energetic matter and antimatter particles approximately 12 trillion miles long. In both the composite image and the six second video, this energetic, X-ray blast shoots from the bright white dot at the tip of the guitar’s headstock, all the way out to our upper righthand corner. In the still image, the blast resembles a streak of red dots, most of which fall in a straight, densely packed line. The six second video features four separate images of the phenomenon, created with Chandra data gathered in 2000, 2006, 2012, and 2021. When shown in sequence, the density of the X-ray blast filament appears to fluctuate.
A 12 second video is also included in this release. It features four images that focus on the headstock of the guitar shape. These images were captured by the Hubble Space Telescope in 1994, 2001, 2006, and 2021. When played in sequence, the images show the headstock shape expanding. A study of this data has concluded that the variations that drive the formation of bubbles in the hydrogen nebula also control changes in the pulsar’s blast filament. Meaning the same phenomenon that created the cosmic guitar also created the cosmic blowtorch shooting from the headstock.
View the full article
-
By NASA
X-ray: NASA/CXC/Xiamen Univ./C. Ge; Optical: DESI collaboration; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/N. Wolk Astronomers using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory have found a galaxy cluster has two streams of superheated gas crossing one another. This result shows that crossing the streams may lead to the creation of new structure.
Researchers have discovered an enormous, comet-like tail of hot gas — spanning over 1.6 million light-years long — trailing behind a galaxy within the galaxy cluster called Zwicky 8338 (Z8338 for short). This tail, spawned as the galaxy had some of its gas stripped off by the hot gas it is hurtling through, has split into two streams.
This is the second pair of tails trailing behind a galaxy in this system. Previously, astronomers discovered a shorter pair of tails from a different galaxy near this latest one. This newer and longer set of tails was only seen because of a deeper observation with Chandra that revealed the fainter X-rays.
Researchers have discovered a second pair of tails trailing behind a galaxy in this cluster. Previously, astronomers discovered a shorter pair of tails from a different galaxy close to this latest one. This newer and longer set of tails was only seen because of a deeper observation with Chandra that revealed the fainter X-rays that have been shown in the optical data. These tails span for over a million light-years and help determine the evolution of the galaxy cluster.X-ray: NASA/CXC/Xiamen Univ./C. Ge; Optical: DESI collaboration; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/N. Wolk Astronomers now have evidence that these streams trailing behind the speeding galaxies have crossed one another. Z8338 is a chaotic landscape of galaxies, superheated gas, and shock waves (akin to sonic booms created by supersonic jets) in one relatively small region of space. These galaxies are in motion because they were part of two galaxy clusters that collided with each other to create Z8338.
This new composite image shows this spectacle. X-rays from Chandra (represented in purple) outline the multimillion-degree gas that outweighs all of the galaxies in the cluster. The Chandra data also shows where this gas has been jettisoned behind the moving galaxies. Meanwhile an optical image from the Dark Energy Survey from the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile shows the individual galaxies peppered throughout the same field of view.
The original gas tail discovered in Z8338 is about 800,000 light-years long and is seen as vertical in this image (see the labeled version). The researchers think the gas in this tail is being stripped away from a large galaxy as it travels through the galaxy cluster. The head of the tail is a cloud of relatively cool gas about 100,000 light-years away from the galaxy it was stripped from. This tail is also separated into two parts.
The team proposes that the detachment of the tail from the large galaxy may have been caused by the passage of the other, longer tail. Under this scenario, the tail detached from the galaxy because of the crossing of the streams.
The results give useful information about the detachment and destruction of clouds of cooler gas like those seen in the head of the detached tail. This work shows that the cloud can survive for at least 30 million years after it is detached. During that time, a new generation of stars and planets may form within it.
The Z8338 galaxy cluster and its jumble of galactic streams are located about 670 million light-years from Earth. A paper describing these results appeared in the Aug. 8, 2023, issue of the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society and is available online at: https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/525/1/1365/7239302.
NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center manages the Chandra program. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory’s Chandra X-ray Center controls science operations from Cambridge, Massachusetts, and flight operations from Burlington, Massachusetts.
Read more from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory.
Learn more about the Chandra X-ray Observatory and its mission here:
https://www.nasa.gov/chandra
https://chandra.si.edu
Visual Description:
This release features a composite image of two pairs of hot gas tails found inside a single galaxy cluster. The image is presented both labeled and unlabeled, with color-coded ovals encircling the hot gas tails.
In both the labeled and unlabeled versions of the image, mottled purple gas speckles a region of space dotted with distant flecks of red and white. Also present in this region of space are several glowing golden dots. These dots are individual galaxies that together form the cluster Zwicky 8338.
To our right of center is a glowing golden galaxy with a mottled V shaped cloud of purple above it. Yellow labels identify the two arms of the V as tails trailing behind the hurtling galaxy below.
To our left of center is another golden galaxy, this one surrounded by purple gas. Behind it, opening toward our right in the shape of a widening V lying on its side, are two more mottled purple clouds. Labeled in white, these newly-discovered gas tails are even larger than the previously discovered tails labeled in yellow. These tails, which overlap with the galaxy on our right, are over 1.6 million light-years long.
News Media Contact
Megan Watzke
Chandra X-ray Center
Cambridge, Mass.
617-496-7998
Lane Figueroa
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama
256-544-0034
lane.e.figueroa@nasa.gov
View the full article
-
By NASA
Hubble Space Telescope Home NASA’s Hubble, Chandra… Missions Hubble Home Overview About Hubble The History of Hubble Hubble Timeline Why Have a Telescope in Space? Hubble by the Numbers At the Museum FAQs Impact & Benefits Hubble’s Impact & Benefits Science Impacts Cultural Impact Technology Benefits Impact on Human Spaceflight Astro Community Impacts Science Hubble Science Science Themes Science Highlights Science Behind Discoveries Hubble’s Partners in Science Universe Uncovered Explore the Night Sky Observatory Hubble Observatory Hubble Design Mission Operations Missions to Hubble Hubble vs Webb Team Hubble Team Career Aspirations Hubble Astronauts News Hubble News Hubble News Archive Social Media Media Resources Multimedia Multimedia Images Videos Sonifications Podcasts E-books Lithographs Fact Sheets Glossary Posters Hubble on the NASA App More Online Activities 5 min read
NASA’s Hubble, Chandra Find Supermassive Black Hole Duo
This is an artist’s depiction of a pair of active black holes at the heart of two merging galaxies. They are both surrounded by an accretion disk of hot gas. Some of the material is ejected along the spin axis of each black hole. Confined by powerful magnetic fields, the jets blaze across space at nearly the speed of light as devastating beams of energy. NASA, ESA, Joseph Olmsted (STScI)
Download this artist’s depiction
Like two Sumo wrestlers squaring off, the closest confirmed pair of supermassive black holes have been observed in tight proximity. These are located approximately 300 light-years apart and were detected using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and the Chandra X-ray Observatory. These black holes, buried deep within a pair of colliding galaxies, are fueled by infalling gas and dust, causing them to shine brightly as active galactic nuclei (AGN).
This AGN pair is the closest one detected in the local universe using multiwavelength (visible and X-ray light) observations. While several dozen “dual” black holes have been found before, their separations are typically much greater than what was discovered in the gas-rich galaxy MCG-03-34-64. Astronomers using radio telescopes have observed one pair of binary black holes in even closer proximity than in MCG-03-34-64, but without confirmation in other wavelengths.
AGN binaries like this were likely more common in the early universe when galaxy mergers were more frequent. This discovery provides a unique close-up look at a nearby example, located about 800 million light-years away.
A Hubble Space Telescope visible-light image of the galaxy MCG-03-34-064. Hubble’s sharp view reveals three distinct bright spots embedded in a white ellipse at the galaxy’s center (expanded in an inset image at upper right). Two of these bright spots are the source of strong X-ray emission, a telltale sign that they are supermassive black holes. The black holes shine brightly because they are converting infalling matter into energy, and blaze across space as active galactic nuclei. Their separation is about 300 light-years. The third spot is a blob of bright gas. The blue streak pointing to the 5 o’clock position may be a jet fired from one of the black holes. The black hole pair is a result of a merger between two galaxies that will eventually collide. NASA, ESA, Anna Trindade Falcão (CfA); Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)
Download this image
The discovery was serendipitous. Hubble’s high-resolution imaging revealed three optical diffraction spikes nested inside the host galaxy, indicating a large concentration of glowing oxygen gas within a very small area. “We were not expecting to see something like this,” said Anna Trindade Falcão of the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian in Cambridge, Massachusetts, lead author of the paper published today in The Astrophysical Journal. “This view is not a common occurrence in the nearby universe, and told us there’s something else going on inside the galaxy.”
Diffraction spikes are imaging artifacts caused when light from a very small region in space bends around the mirror inside telescopes.
Falcão’s team then examined the same galaxy in X-rays light using the Chandra observatory to drill into what’s going on. “When we looked at MCG-03-34-64 in the X-ray band, we saw two separated, powerful sources of high-energy emission coincident with the bright optical points of light seen with Hubble. We put these pieces together and concluded that we were likely looking at two closely spaced supermassive black holes,” said Falcão.
In a surprise finding, astronomers, using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have discovered that the jet from a supermassive black hole at the core of M87, a huge galaxy 54 million light years away, seems to cause stars to erupt along its trajectory. The stars, called novae, are not caught inside the jet, but in a dangerous area near it.
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center; Lead Producer: Paul Morris To support their interpretation, the researchers used archival radio data from the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array near Socorro, New Mexico. The energetic black hole duo also emits powerful radio waves. “When you see bright light in optical, X-rays, and radio wavelengths, a lot of things can be ruled out, leaving the conclusion these can only be explained as close black holes. When you put all the pieces together it gives you the picture of the AGN duo,” said Falcão.
The third source of bright light seen by Hubble is of unknown origin, and more data is needed to understand it. That might be gas that is shocked by energy from a jet of ultra high-speed plasma fired from one of the black holes, like a stream of water from a garden hose blasting into a pile of sand.
“We wouldn’t be able to see all of these intricacies without Hubble’s amazing resolution,” said Falcão.
The two supermassive black holes were once at the core of their respective host galaxies. A merger between the galaxies brought the black holes into close proximity. They will continue to spiral closer together until they eventually merge — in perhaps 100 million years — rattling the fabric of space and time as gravitational waves.
The National Science Foundation’s Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) has detected gravitational waves from dozens of mergers between stellar-mass black holes. But the longer wavelengths resulting from a supermassive black hole merger are beyond LIGO’s capabilities. The next-generation gravitational wave detector, called the LISA (Laser Interferometer Space Antenna) mission, will consist of three detectors in space, separated by millions of miles, to capture these longer wavelength gravitational waves from deep space. ESA (European Space Agency) is leading this mission, partnering with NASA and other participating institutions, with a planned launch in the mid-2030s.
NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center manages the Chandra program. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory’s Chandra X-ray Center controls science from Cambridge, Massachusetts and flight operations from Burlington, Massachusetts. Northrop Grumman Space Technologies in Redondo Beach, California was the prime contractor for the spacecraft.
The Hubble Space Telescope has been operating for over three decades and continues to make ground-breaking discoveries that shape our fundamental understanding of the universe. Hubble is a project of international cooperation between NASA and ESA (European Space Agency). NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope and mission operations. Lockheed Martin Space, based in Denver, Colorado, also supports mission operations at Goddard. The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, conducts Hubble science operations for NASA.
Facebook logo @NASAHubble @NASAHubble Instagram logo @NASAHubble Media Contacts:
Claire Andreoli
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD
claire.andreoli@nasa.gov
Ray Villard
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD
Science Contact:
Anna Trindade Falcão
Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, Cambridge, MA
Share
Details
Last Updated Sep 09, 2024 Editor Andrea Gianopoulos Location NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Related Terms
Active Galaxies Astrophysics Astrophysics Division Chandra X-Ray Observatory Galaxies Goddard Space Flight Center Hubble Space Telescope Marshall Space Flight Center Missions Spiral Galaxies The Universe Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From Hubble
Hubble Space Telescope
Since its 1990 launch, the Hubble Space Telescope has changed our fundamental understanding of the universe.
Galaxy Details and Mergers
Monster Black Holes Are Everywhere
Hubble’s Galaxies
View the full article
-
By NASA
5 Min Read Cassiopeia A, Then the Cosmos: 25 Years of Chandra X-ray Science
By Rick Smith
On Aug. 26, 1999, NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory opened its powerful telescopic eye in orbit and captured its awe-inspiring “first light” images of Cassiopeia A, a supernova remnant roughly 11,000 light-years from Earth. That first observation was far more detailed than anything seen by previous X-ray telescopes, even revealing – for the first time ever – a neutron star left in the wake of the colossal stellar detonation.
Those revelations came as no surprise to Chandra project scientist Martin Weisskopf, who led Chandra’s development at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. “When you build instrumentation that’s 10 times more sensitive than anything that was done before, you’re bound to discover something new and exciting,” he said. “Every step forward was a giant step forward.”
Twenty-five years later, Chandra has repeated that seminal moment of discovery again and again, delivering – to date – nearly 25,000 detailed observations of neutron stars, quasars, supernova remnants, black holes, galaxy clusters, and other highly energetic objects and events, some as far away as 13 billion light-years from Earth.
Chandra has further helped scientists gain tangible evidence of dark matter and dark energy, documented the first electromagnetic events tied to gravitational waves in space, and most recently aided the search for habitable exoplanets – all vital tools for understanding the vast, interrelated mechanisms of the universe we live in.
NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory has observed Cassiopeia A for more than 2 million total seconds since its “first light ” images of the supernova remnant on Aug. 26, 1999. Cas A is some 11,000 light-years from Earth. Chandra X-rays are depicted in blue and composited with infrared images from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope in orange and white.Credits: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Infrared: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI/D. Milisavljevic (Purdue Univ.), I. De Looze (University of Ghent), T. Temim (Princeton Univ.); Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/J. Schmidt, K. Arcand, and J. Major “Chandra’s first image of Cas A provided stunning demonstration of Chandra’s exquisite X-ray mirrors, but it simultaneously revealed things we had not known about young supernova remnants,” said Pat Slane, director of the CXC (Chandra X-ray Center) housed at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts. “In a blink, Chandra not only revealed the neutron star in Cas A; it also taught us that young neutron stars can be significantly more modest in their output than what previously had been understood. Throughout its 25 years in space, Chandra has deepened our understanding of fundamental astrophysics, while also greatly broadening our view of the universe.”
To mark Chandra’s silver anniversary, NASA and CXC have shared 25 of its most breathtaking images and debuted a new video, “Eye on the Cosmos.”
Chandra often is used in conjunction with other space telescopes that observe the cosmos in different parts of the electromagnetic spectrum, and with other high-energy missions such as ESA’s (European Space Agency’s) XMM-Newton; NASA’s Swift, NuSTAR (Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array), and IXPE (Imaging X-ray Polarization Explorer) imagers, and NASA’s NICER (Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer) X-ray observatory, which studies high-energy phenomena from its vantage point aboard the International Space Station.
Chandra remains a unique, global science resource, with a robust data archive that will continue to serve the science community for many years.
“NASA’s project science team has always strived to conduct Chandra science as equitably as possible by having the world science community collectively decide how best to use the observatory’s many tremendous capabilities,” said Douglas Swartz, a USRA (Universities Space Research Association) principal research scientist on the Chandra project science team.
These images were released to commemorate the 25th anniversary of Chandra. They represent the wide range of objects that the telescope has observed over its quarter century of observations. X-rays are an especially penetrating type of light that reveals extremely hot objects and very energetic physical processes. The images range from supernova remnants, like Cassiopeia A, to star-formation regions like the Orion Nebula, to the region at the center of the Milky Way. This montage also contains objects beyond our own Galaxy including other galaxies and galaxy clusters.X-ray: NASA/CXC/UMass/Q.D. Wang; “Chandra will continue to serve the astrophysics community long after its mission ends,” said Andrew Schnell, acting Chandra program manager at Marshall. “Perhaps its greatest discovery hasn’t been discovered yet. It’s just sitting there in our data archive, waiting for someone to ask the right question and use the data to answer it. It could be somebody who hasn’t even been born yet.”
That archive is impressive indeed. To date, Chandra has delivered more than 70 trillion bytes of raw data. More than 5,000 unique principal investigators and some 3,500 undergraduate and graduate students around the world have conducted research based on Chandra’s observations. Its findings have helped earn more than 700 PhDs and resulted in more than 11,000 published papers, with half a million total citations.
Weisskopf is now an emeritus researcher who still keeps office hours every weekday despite having retired from NASA in 2022. He said the work remains as stimulating now as it was 25 years ago, waiting breathlessly for those “first light” images.
NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory data, seen here in violet and white, is joined with that of NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope (red, green, and blue) and Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (purple) to show off the eerie beauty of the Crab Nebula. The nebula is the result of a bright supernova explosion first witnessed and documented in 1054 A.D.X-ray: (Chandra) NASA/CXC/SAO, (IXPE) NASA/MSFC; Optical: NASA/ESA/STScI; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/J. Schmidt, K. Arcand, and L. Frattare “We’re always trying to put ourselves out of business with the next bit of scientific understanding,” he said. “But these amazing discoveries have demonstrated how much NASA’s astrophysics missions still have to teach us.”
The universe keeps turning – and Chandra’s watchful eye endures.
More about Chandra
Chandra, managed for NASA by Marshall in partnership with the CXC, is one of NASA’s Great Observatories, along with the Hubble Space Telescope and the now-retired Spitzer Space Telescope and Compton Gamma Ray Observatory. It was first proposed to NASA in 1976 by Riccardo Giacconi, recipient of the 2002 Nobel Prize for Physics based on his contributions to X-ray astronomy, and Harvey Tananbaum, who would later become the first director of the Chandra X-ray Center. Chandra was named in honor of the late Nobel laureate Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, who earned the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1983 for his work explaining the structure and evolution of stars.
Learn more about the Chandra X-ray Observatory and its mission here:
https://www.nasa.gov/chandra
https://cxc.harvard.edu
News Media Contact
Lane Figueroa
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama
256-544-0034
lane.e.figueroa@nasa.gov
Share
Details
Last Updated Aug 26, 2024 Related Terms
Chandra X-Ray Observatory Crab Nebula Galaxies Marshall Space Flight Center Nebulae Explore More
5 min read Webb Finds Early Galaxies Weren’t Too Big for Their Britches After All
It got called the crisis in cosmology. But now astronomers can explain some surprising recent…
Article 5 hours ago 2 min read Hubble Captures Unique Ultraviolet View of a Spectacular Star Cluster
Roughly 210,000 light-years away, the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) is one of our Milky Way…
Article 5 hours ago 2 min read Hubble Reaches a Lonely Light in the Dark
A splatter of stars glows faintly at almost 3 million light-years away in this new…
Article 3 days ago Keep Exploring Discover More Topics From NASA
Missions
Humans in Space
Climate Change
Solar System
View the full article
-
By NASA
On July 23, 1999, space shuttle Columbia took to the skies on its 26th trip into space, to deliver its heaviest payload ever – the Chandra X-ray Observatory. The STS-93 crew included Commander Eileen M. Collins, the first woman to command a space shuttle mission, Pilot Jeffrey S. Ashby, and Mission Specialists Catherine “Cady” G. Coleman, Steven A. Hawley, and Michel A. Tognini of the French Space Agency (CNES). On the mission’s first day, they deployed Chandra, the most powerful X-ray telescope. With a planned five-year lifetime, Chandra continues its observations after a quarter century. For the next four days, the astronauts worked on twenty secondary middeck payloads and conducted Earth observations. The successful five-day mission ended with a night landing.
Left: The STS-93 crew patch. Middle: Official photo of the STS-93 crew of Eileen M. Collins, left, Steven A. Hawley, Jeffrey S. Ashby, Michel A. Tognini of France, and Catherine “Cady” G. Coleman. Right: The patch for the Chandra X-ray Observatory.
Tognini, selected by CNES in 1985 and a member of NASA’s class of 1995, received the first assignment to STS-93 in November 1997. He previously flew aboard Mir as a cosmonaut researcher, spending 14 days aboard the station in 1992. On March 5, 1998, First Lady Hilary R. Clinton announced Collins’ assignment as the first woman space shuttle commander in a ceremony at the White House together with President William J. “Bill” Clinton. NASA announced the rest of the crew the same day. For Collins, selected in the class of 1990, STS-93 represented her third space mission, having previously served as pilot on STS-63 and STS-84. Ashby, a member of the class of 1994, made his first flight aboard STS-93, while Coleman, selected in 1992, made her second flight, having flown before on STS-73. Hawley made his fifth flight, having previously served as a mission specialist on STS-41D, STS-61C, STS-31, and STS-82. He has the distinction of making the last flight by any member of his class of 1978, more than 21 years after his selection.
Left: Schematic of the Chandra X-ray Observatory showing its major components. Right: Diagram of the trajectory Chandra took to achieve its final operational 64-hour orbit around the Earth – IUS refers to the two burns of the Inertial Upper Stage and IPS to the five burns of Chandra’s Integral Propulsion System.
Because the Earth’s atmosphere absorbs X-ray radiation emitted by cosmic sources, scientists first came up with the idea of a space-based X-ray telescope in the 1970s. NASA launched its first X-ray telescope called Einstein in 1978, but scientists needed a more powerful instrument, and they proposed the Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility (AXAF). After a major redesign of the telescope in 1992, in 1998 NASA renamed AXAF the Chandra X-ray Observatory after Indian American Nobel Prize-winning theoretical physicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar who made significant contributions to our knowledge about stars, stellar evolution, and black holes. Chandra, the third of NASA’s four Great Observatories, can detect X-ray sources 100 times fainter than any previous X-ray telescope. At 50,162 pounds including the Inertial Upper Stage (IUS) it used to achieve its operational orbit, Chandra remains the heaviest payload ever launched by the space shuttle, and at 57 feet long, it took up nearly the entire length of the payload bay. It has far exceeded its expected five-year lifetime, still returning valuable science after 25 years.
Left: The STS-93 crew during the Terminal Countdown Demonstration Test. Middle: The Chandra X-ray Observatory loaded into Columbia’s payload bay. Right: Liftoff of Columbia on the STS-93 mission carrying the Chandra X-ray Observatory and the first woman shuttle commander.
Columbia returned to KSC following its previous flight, the STS-90 Neurolab mission, in May 1998. Workers in KSC’s Orbiter Processing Facility (OPF) serviced the orbiter and removed the previous payload. With all four orbiters at KSC at the same time, workers temporarily stowed Columbia in the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB), returning it to the OPF for final preflight processing on April 15, 1999. Rollover of Columbia from the OPF to the VAB took place on June 2, where workers mated it with an external tank and two solid rocket boosters. Following integrated testing, the stack rolled out to Launch Pad 39B on June 7. The crew participated in the Terminal Countdown Demonstration Test on June 24. Workers placed Chandra in Columbia’s payload bay three days later.
On July 23, 1994, Columbia thundered into the night sky from KSC’s Launch Pad 39B to begin the STS-93 mission. Two previous launch attempts on July 20 and 22 resulted in scrubs due to a faulty sensor and bad weather, respectively. As Columbia rose into the sky, for the first time in shuttle history a woman sat in the commander’s seat. Far below, problems arose that could have led to a catastrophic abort scenario. During the engine ignition sequence, a gold pin in Columbia’s right engine came loose, ejected with great force by the rapid flow of hot gases, and struck the engine’s nozzle, punching holes in three of its hydrogen cooling tubes. Although small, the hydrogen leak caused the engine’s controller to increase the flow of oxidizer, making the engine run hotter than normal. Meanwhile, a short-circuit knocked out the center engine’s digital control unit (DCU) and the right engine’s backup DCU. Both engines continued powered flight without a redundant DCU, with a failure in either causing a catastrophic abort. Although this did not occur, the higher than expected oxidizer usage led to main engine cutoff occurring 1.5 seconds early, leaving Columbia in a lower than planned orbit. The shuttle’s Orbiter Maneuvering System engines made up for the deficit. The harrowing events of the powered flight prompted Ascent Flight Director John P. Shannon to comment, “Yikes! We don’t need any more of these.”
Left: Eileen M. Collins, the first woman shuttle commander, shortly after reaching orbit. Right: First time space flyer STS-93 Pilot Jeffrey S. Ashby, shortly after reaching space.
After reaching orbit, the crew opened the payload bay doors and deployed the shuttle’s radiators, and removed their bulky launch and entry suits, stowing them for the remainder of the flight. The astronauts prepared for the mission’s primary objective, deployment of Chandra, and also began activating some of the middeck experiments.
Left: The Chandra X-ray Observatory in Columbia’s payload bay shortly after reaching orbit. Middle: Chandra raised to the deployment angle. Right: Chandra departs Columbia.
Coleman had prime responsibility for deploying Chandra. After initial checkout of the telescope by ground teams, the astronauts tilted Chandra and the IUS to an angle of 29 degrees. After additional checks, they tilted it up to the release angle of 58 degrees. A little over seven hours after launch, Coleman deployed the Chandra/IUS stack. Collins and Ashby flew Columbia to a safe distance, and about an hour after deployment, the IUS fired its first stage engine for about two minutes, followed by a two-minute burn of the second stage. This placed Chandra in a temporary elliptical Earth orbit with a high point of 37,200 miles. After separation of the IUS, Chandra used its own propulsion system over the next 10 days to raise its altitude to 6,214 miles by 86,992 miles, its operational orbit, circling the Earth every 64 hours. For the next four days of the mission, the astronauts operated about 20 middeck experiments, including a technology demonstration of a treadmill vibration isolation system planned for the International Space Station.
Left: Michel A. Tognini works with the Commercial Generic Bioprocessing Apparatus. Middle: Jeffrey S. Ashby checks the status of the Space Tissue Lab experiment. Right: Catherine G. Coleman harvests plants from the Plant Growth in Microgravity experiment.
Left: Catherine G. Coleman, left, and Michel A. Tognini pose near the Lightweight Flexible Solar Array Hinge technology demonstration experiment. Middle: Stephen A. Hawley checks the status of the Micro Electromechanical Systems experiment. Right: Tognini places samples of the Biological Research in Canisters experiment into a gaseous nitrogen freezer.
Left: Eileen M. Collins runs on the Treadmill Vibration Isolation System. Middle: Stephen A. Hawley, left, and Michel A. Tognini operate the Southwest Ultraviolet Imaging System instrument. Right: Inflight photograph of the STS-93 crew.
A selection of the STS-93 crew Earth observation photographs. Left: Laguna Verde in Chile. Middle left: Sunrise over the Mozambique Channel. Middle right: Darling River and lakes in Australia. Right: The Society Islands of Bora Bora, Tahaa, and Raiatea.
Left: Eileen M. Collins prepares to bring Columbia home. Middle: Columbia streaks through the skies over NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston during reentry. Right: Collins guides Columbia to a smooth touchdown on the Shuttle Landing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Left: Three holes visible in the hydrogen cooling tubes of Columbia’s right main engine, seen after landing. Middle: The STS-93 crew pose in front of Columbia on the Shuttle Landing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Right: Eileen M. Collins addresses the crowd at Houston’s Ellington Field during the welcome home ceremony for the STS-93 crew, as Vice President Albert “Al” A. Gore and other dignitaries listen.
At the end of five days, the astronauts finished the last of the experiments and prepared for the return to Earth. On July 28, they closed Columbia’s payload bay doors, donned their launch and entry suits, and strapped themselves into their seats for entry and landing. Collins piloted Columbia to a smooth landing on KSC’s Shuttle Landing Facility, completing the 12th night landing of the shuttle program. The crew had flown 80 orbits around the Earth in 4 days, 22 hours, and 50 minutes. Columbia wouldn’t fly again until March 2002, the STS-109 Hubble Servicing Mission-3B. A postflight investigation into the cause of the short on ascent that led to two DCUs failing revealed a wire with frayed insulation, likely caused by workers inadvertently stepping on it, that rubbed against a burred screw head that had likely been there since Columbia’s manufacture. The incident resulted in significant changes to ground processes during shuttle inspections and repairs. With regard to the pin ejected during engine ignition that damaged the hydrogen cooling tubes, investigators found that those pins never passed any acceptance testing. Since STS-93 marked the last flight of that generation of main engines, newer engines incorporated a different configuration, requiring no design or other changes.
Enjoy the crew narrate a video about the STS-93 mission. Read Hawley’s recollections of the STS-93 mission in his oral history with the JSC History Office.
Explore More
11 min read 45 Years Ago: Space Shuttle Enterprise Completes Launch Pad Checkout
Article 9 hours ago 5 min read Eileen Collins Broke Barriers as America’s First Female Space Shuttle Commander
Article 2 days ago 8 min read 55 Years Ago: Apollo 11’s One Small Step, One Giant Leap
Article 1 week ago
View the full article
-
-
Check out these Videos
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.