chandra x-ray observatory http://chandra.harvard.edu black hole fires at neighboring galaxy black...

CHANDRA X-RAY OBSERVATORYHTTP://CHANDRA.HARVARD.EDU

BLACK HOLE FIRES ATNEIGHBORING GALAXY BLACK HOLE FIRES ATNEIGHBORING GALAXY

Dr. Dan EvansNASA’s Chandra X-ray ObservatoryHarvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics


CHANDRA: NOT YOUR BACKYARD TELESCOPE

Most people think of a “telescope” as

something in a backyard or the dome at

the local planetarium. But telescopes

like these that detect the kind of light

we can see with our human eyes are

just one answer. Stopping there would

be like saying, we have cars to get

around, who needs airplanes?

Light takes on many forms — from

radio to infrared to X-rays and more.

And the Universe tells its story through

all of these different types of radiation.

So, in order to really understand the

cosmos, astronomers need all different

kinds of telescopes.


THE BIG PICTURE

Do we really need these “other” kinds of telescopes? The truth is if we only studied

the cosmos in the light we can detect with our eyes, we would only see a small

fraction of what was going on. In other words, it would be like trying to figure out the

action and score of a baseball game while only seeing down the third base line. By

studying all types of light, we can hope to get the full picture of the Universe.


ASTRONOMY’S VERSION OF MOORE’S LAW

If these other kinds of telescopes are important, why haven’t

more people heard about them? First, so-called visible light is the

best place to start because humans already have a pair of such

“telescopes”: their eyes. Galileo built on this fact with his

telescope in 1609 and work in “optical” astronomy has

progressed from there.

Other wavelengths, however, had more difficult starts. For

example, X-rays from space are almost entirely absorbed by the

Earth’s atmosphere. This meant that X-ray astronomy could not

begin until humans figured out how to launch satellites and

rockets into space in the middle of the 20 th century. But X-ray

astronomy has grown up quickly and made incredible progress in

just a handful of decades.

Think of Moore’s Law — the one that says computing power will

double every 18 months. X-ray astronomy has been faster than

Moore's law, improving 100 million times in sensitivity in just 36

years.


DO X-RAY ASTRONOMERS WEAR LEAD APRONS?

When objects get very hot (or, by

extension, very energetic), they

give off X-rays. Some of the most

intriguing objects in the Universe-

black holes, exploded stars,

clusters of galaxies-reveal much

about themselves through X-rays.

An X-ray machine can't act like

Chandra and photograph an X-ray

source. Chandra, however, can act

like the camera in an X-ray

machine and reveal information

about what's between the source

and the camera.

Med. X-rays


FALSE, OR RATHER, REPRESENTATIVE, COLOR

X-rays can’t be seen with the human eye, and don’t have any "color." Images taken by telescopes

that observe at the "invisible" wavelengths are sometimes called false color images. That’s because

the colors used to make them are not real but are chosen to bring out important details. The color

choice is typically used as a type of code in which the colors can be associated with the intensity or

brightness of the radiation from different regions of the image, or with the energy of the emission.

False Color


MIRROR, MIRROR ON THE WALL

Another reason why a telescope like the Chandra X-ray Observatory is so remarkably successful is that X-ray

astronomy is very technically challenging. One of the biggest problems is that X-rays that strike a ‘regular’ mirror head

on will just be absorbed. In order to focus X-rays onto a detector, the mirrors have to be shaped like barrels so that the

X-rays strike them at grazing angles, just like pebbles skipping across a pond.

QuickTime™ and aYUV420 codec decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

http://chandra.harvard.edu/resources/animations/mirror_comparison_lg.mpg


FAR OUT ORBIT

The Chandra X-ray Observatory captures X-ray images and measures spectra of many high-energy cosmic

phenomena. Unlike Hubble, its sister “Great Observatory,” Chandra has a highly elliptical orbit that takes it 1/3 of the

way to the Moon. This orbit allows Chandra to observe continuously for many hours at a time, but makes it

unreachable by the Space Shuttle, which was used to launch it back in 1999 . (High Def version available by request)

Orbit

High Res QT: http://chandra.harvard.edu/resources/animations/Dana_BShot_lg_web.mov

QuickTime™ and aYUV420 codec decompressor

are needed to see this picture.


8 Years

EIGHT YEARS OF CHANDRA

Highlights of discoveries made with Chandra range from the mysteries surrounding black holes, to the secret lives of galaxies, to the puzzles of dark matter and dark energy. In short, nearly all areas of astrophysics are part of the X-ray Universe.


3C321 -A radio galaxy 1.2 billion light years from Earth.

3C321 is a so-called radio galaxy because it belongs to a class of galaxies known to have strong radio emission. Many radio galaxies have powerful jets blasting out of their cores. When astronomers looked at this object, however, they saw something very unusual. They found that the jet from 3C321 appears to be striking another galaxy only about 21,000 light years away. At this distance, less than that between the Earth and the center of the Milky Way, the galaxy being blasted could be experiencing significant disruptions.


3C321: MULTIWAVELENGTH, WORKING TOGETHER

This "death star galaxy" was discovered through the combined efforts of both space and ground-based telescopes. NASA's Chandra, Hubble Space Telescope, and Spitzer Space Telescope, plus the Very Large Array (VLA) and MERLIN radio telescopes were required for this result.


3C321

QuickTime™ and aSorenson Video 3 decompressorare needed to see this picture.

Scale: Image is 27 arcsec across

Coordinates: RA 15h 31m 42.70s | DEC +24º 04' 25.00”

Observation Date (Chandra): April 30, 2002

Observation Time (Chandra): 13 hours

Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO/D.Evans et al.; Optical/UV: NASA/STScI;Radio: NSF/NRAO/VLA


IN CONTEXT (X-ray & Radio Full Field)

Jet

Jet


DEATH STAR ILLUSTRATION


ANIMATION


REQUEST CHANDRA RESOURCES

Resources

http://chandra.harvard.edu/edu/request.html


MORE INFORMATION AT CHANDRA

URLs

3C321 (Embargoed until 12/17): http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2007/3c321

Related Images: http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/

Animations & Video:http://chandra.harvard.edu/resources/animations/

Resources:http://chandra.harvard.edu/edu/update.htmlhttp://chandra.harvard.edu/edu/anim.html

chandra x-ray observatory http://chandra.harvard.edu black hole fires at neighboring galaxy black...

Documents