NASA telescopes chase down 'Green Monster' in star's debris

By bringing together data from two NASA telescopes, astronomers may have solved a mystery around a bizarre structure found in the debris field of an exploded star. Their work has uncovered new details about the star's remains, ...

Hubble finds bizarre explosion in unexpected place

A very rare, strange burst of extraordinarily bright light in the universe just got even stranger—thanks to the eagle-eye of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The phenomenon, called a Luminous Fast Blue Optical Transient ...

Webb reveals new structures within iconic supernova

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has begun the study of one of the most renowned supernovae, SN 1987A (Supernova 1987A). Located 168,000 light-years away in the Large Magellanic Cloud, SN 1987A has been a target of intense ...

Exploring Stephan's Quintet with multiple senses

Experts created two new visual and auditory experiences to explore the complexity and beauty of a compact galaxy group known as Stephan's Quintet. The guided three-dimensional visualization surveys the galaxies—their structures, ...

Could NASA resurrect the Spitzer space telescope?

NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope served the astronomy community well for 16 years. From its launch in 2003 to the end of its operations in January 2020, its infrared observations fueled scientific discoveries too numerous to ...

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Chandra X-ray Observatory

The Chandra X-ray Observatory is a satellite launched on STS-93 by NASA on July 23, 1999. It was named in honor of Indian-American physicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar who is known for determining the mass limit for white dwarf stars to become neutron stars. "Chandra" also means "moon" or "luminous" in Sanskrit.

Chandra Observatory is the third of NASA's four Great Observatories. The first was Hubble Space Telescope; second the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, launched in 1991; and last is the Spitzer Space Telescope. Prior to successful launch, the Chandra Observatory was known as AXAF, the Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility. AXAF was assembled and tested by TRW (now Northrop Grumman Space Technology) in Redondo Beach, California. Chandra is sensitive to X-ray sources 100 times fainter than any previous X-ray telescope, due primarily to the high angular resolution of the Chandra mirrors.

Since the Earth's atmosphere absorbs the vast majority of X-rays, they are not detectable from Earth-based telescopes, requiring a space-based telescope to make these observations.

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