Messier 106 (M106), also known as NGC 4258, is a spiral galaxy – like our own Milky Way -- located in the constellation Canes Venatici. It lies at a distance of roughly 23 million light-years and spans some 135,000 light-years in diameter. This galaxy is famous, however, for something that our Galaxy doesn’t have – two extra spiral arms that glow in X-ray, optical, and radio light. These features, called anomalous arms, are not aligned with the plane of the galaxy, but instead intersect with it. The X-ray image from Chandra reveals huge bubbles of hot gas above and below the plane of the gala ..read more

The Chandra team has been working behind the scenes with the Smithsonian Institution's Digitization 3D Program, to create a new scrolling interactive for Cassiopeia A. The term "scrollytelling" is real, even if you might not find it in every dictionary. (Though if you look in online ones – especially any that include online terminology – you will.) You may have experienced scrollytelling yourself if you’ve read or explored longer pieces of content on certain platforms or news outlets. The idea is simple: as you scroll down the page, new information in the form of text, images, and videos wil ..read more

It’s been over a quarter of a century since the Space Shuttle Columbia deployed NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory into space during mission STS-93. Chandra’s highly elliptical orbit takes it over one-third of the distance to the Moon at its farthest point. Although Chandra's closest approach to Earth fluctuates extensively with long-term variations in the orbit, it is still typically well more than 600 miles (1000 kilometers) above the surface. Compare that to the International Space Station which orbits our planet at an altitude of about 250 miles, and the Hubble Space Telescope which sits a ..read more

Illustration of AT2018fyk Illustration Credit: NASA/CXC/M. Weiss By using new data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory as well as ESA’s XMM-Newton, a team of researchers have made important headway in understanding how — and when — a supermassive black hole obtains and then consumes material, as described in our latest press release. This artist’s impression shows a star that has partially been disrupted by such a black hole in the system known as AT2018fyk.The supermassive black hole in AT2018fyk — with about 50 million times more mass than the sun — is ..read more

Twenty-five years ago, the Space Shuttle Columbia launched into space carrying the Chandra X-ray Observatory. Press releases from the Chandra X-ray Center, CfA, and Smithsonian shared 25 new images with Chandra data to publicize this momentous milestone. A dedicated webpage to Chandra’s 25th birthday, plus the new images and press release, can be found at https://chandra.si.edu/25th/ On July 22nd, the Chandra Operations Control Center in Burlington, Mass., held an event to mark the occasion for Chandra staff as well as family and friends. Speakers included Chandra Director Pat Slane, CfA Di ..read more

Chandra 25th Anniversary Images Credit: NASA/CXC/SAO This montage contains 25 new images with data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory that is being released to commemorate the telescope’s 25th anniversary in space, as described in our latest press release. Since its launch into space on July 23, 1999, Chandra has been NASA’s flagship mission for X-ray astronomy in its fleet of “Great Observatories.” Chandra discovers exotic new phenomena and examines old mysteries, looking at objects within our own Solar System out to nearly the edge of the observable Universe. 25th Anniversary Images ..read more

The guest blogger for this post is our own Dr. Kimberly Arcand, Visualization Lead and Emerging Technology Scientist for the Chandra X-ray Center. Kim has been working with Chandra since before the telescope’s launch and has been at the forefront of bringing Chandra data to the public in innovative ways. Some of her recent collaborations include the Chandra sonification project. In addition to being a NASA project, Chandra is also part of the Smithsonian Institution (the telescope is operated by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Mass.) That connection led to a new collab ..read more

MACS J0416, Orion Nebula, NGC 3627, Rho Ophiuchi Credit: MACS J0416.1-2403: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO/G. Ogrean et al.; Optical/Infrared: (Hubble) NASA/ESA/STScI; IR: (JWST) NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI/Jose M. Diego (IFCA), Jordan C. J. D'Silva (UWA), Anton M. Koekemoer (STScI), Jake Summers (ASU), Rogier Windhorst (ASU), Haojing Yan (University of Missouri); Orion Nebula (M42): X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO/E. Feigelson; IR: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI; Image Processing:NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare and J. Major; NGC 3627: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: NASA/ESO/STScI, ESO/WFI; Infrared: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI/JWST; Image Processing ..read more

Our guest blogger this week is Jessica Jacyno. Jacyno is an engineering student at Brown University from Sweetwater, Tennessee. She is passionate about the interplay between international policy and science. As an engineering student, I am taught to take advantage of the laws of physics to accomplish humanity’s goals. Before that though I am a student of the cosmos, intent on staring up at the night sky to unravel the secrets of our origins. Until taking classes on astrophysics at university, my focus had always been on the results, not the tools used to achieve such results. Telescopes alwa ..read more

X#C 58 Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/ICE-CSIC/A. Marino et al.; Optical: SDSS; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/J. Major The supernova remnant 3C 58 contains a spinning neutron star, known as PSR J0205+6449, at its center. Astronomers studied this neutron star and others like it to probe the nature of matter inside these very dense objects. A new study, made using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and ESA’s XMM-Newton, reveals that the interiors of neutron stars may contain a type of ultra-dense matter not found anywhere else in the Universe. In this image of 3C 58, low-energy X-rays are colored red ..read more