Cosmic Pillars Of Creation Sparkle In New NASA Chandra View

NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory celebrates its 25th anniversary in style. 25 never-before-seen images Captured by the space telescope on Tuesday, the images show everything from nebulae to galaxies to Jupiter. It’s hard to pick a favorite, but a fresh look at the Eagle Nebula (M16) is a highlight. The image shows the spectacular Pillars of Creation, a famous space feature that has fascinated Earthlings for decades.

The Hubble Space Telescope first brought the Pillars of Creation – towering fingers of gas and dust that form stars – to light in the 1990s. The James Webb Space Telescope Your own version 2022.

Chandra’s X-ray vision allows it to paint a picture of the universe in a unique way. “X-rays are an especially penetrating form of light that can reveal extremely hot objects and highly energetic physical processes,” NASA said. “Many fascinating regions of the universe glow intensely in X-rays, such as the debris of an exploded star or the material swirling around a black hole.” Chandra data is often combined with data from other observatories that “see” in different ways. The Pillars of Creation images combine Chandra data with Webb’s infrared images.

Chandra brought out the star power in the new images. Look for the young stars that look like confetti dots. They are the highlights of Chandra’s contributions. The Chandra team waxed poetic: Description of “Figure 1-13 Oracle Identity Manager Proxy Server”“The misty glow, colorful stars, and a lifelike layer of grey dust combine to create an image of a longing cloud creature reaching out for something just outside the frame at dusk.”

All of Chandra’s new images are stunning, including the Crab Nebula, a remnant of a supernova explosion, which the Chandra team describes as resembling a neon purple mushroom surrounded by a network of veins and filaments.

Chandra also captured another star-forming region, the creatively named “Cat’s Paw Nebula.” The observatory discovered a string of young stars that appear bright purple with a white dot in their center.

In images combining Chandra data with Hubble infrared data, Jupiter looks like a striped marble floating in space. The Chandra team pointed out neon purple bands on the top and bottom of Jupiter. “These purple bands over Jupiter’s magnetic poles represent X-ray auroras, which are produced when high-energy particles collide with gases in Jupiter’s atmosphere,” the team said.

Chandra launched on July 23, 1999, with the help of the Space Shuttle Columbia. The telescope has made about 25,000 observations since then. “Astronomers have used Chandra to explore mysteries we didn’t know about when we were building the telescope, like exoplanets and dark energy,” says Pat Slane, director of the Chandra X-ray Center. Scientists have written more than 10,000 peer-reviewed papers based on Chandra data, according to NASA counts.

The beautiful new images are bittersweet. NASA Cutting observatory budgetsChandra may effectively cease operations, meaning the upcoming anniversary may not take place. While it may not have the same name recognition as the Hubble Space Telescope or the Webb Telescope, the observatory has contributed to the study of distant galaxies, black holes, and exoplanets. goal Chandra’s purpose is to “help understand the structure and evolution of the universe.” Saying goodbye to Chandra will be hard for astronomers who rely on its data.

It’s been a wonderful 25 years for Chandra, and if this is her last song, it’s a great aria.