CHANDRA X-RAY OBSERVATORY New Dimensions of Cassiopeia A: Over Time and in 3-D New Dimensions of Cassiopeia A: Over Time and in 3-D Dr. Daniel Patnaude NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics Dr. Tracey Delaney NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory Massachusetts Institute of Technology Title

CHANDRA X-RAY OBSERVATORY 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. BackyardBackyard

CHANDRA X-RAY OBSERVATORY 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. Big PictureBig Picture

CHANDRA X-RAY OBSERVATORY 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. 36 Years

CHANDRA X-RAY OBSERVATORY 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. M e d. X - r a y s

CHANDRA X-RAY OBSERVATORY 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. Fals e Colo r

CHANDRA X-RAY OBSERVATORY 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. MirrorsMirrors

CHANDRA X-RAY OBSERVATORY 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 (High Def version available by request) Orbit High Res QT:

CHANDRA X-RAY OBSERVATORY 8 Years TEN 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.

CHANDRA X-RAY OBSERVATORY ANIMATION of an Exploding Star Animation When a massive star explodes, it creates a shell of hot gas that glows brightly in X-rays. This animation shows this process and depicts the stellar debris that Chandra is able to observe, revealing the dynamics of the explosion.

CHANDRA X-RAY OBSERVATORY Cassiopeia A - A supernova remnant 10,000 light years from Earth. Cassiopeia A, or Cas A, for short, was first observed on Earth in the late 17th centuries. As one of the youngest supernova remnants in the Milky Way, It has become one of the best-studied supernova remnants in the sky with telescopes of many different wavelengths. Pictured: Chandra X-ray Image 3C3213C321

CHANDRA X-RAY OBSERVATORY Cassiopeia A - A supernova remnant 10,000 light years from Earth. 3C3213C321 Up until now, the view of Cas A has been a static one – the typical two- dimensions that make the supernova remnant appear flat on the sky. Two new results being presented today change that. Pictured: Chandra X-ray (red & yellow): Spitzer Infrared (blue)

CHANDRA X-RAY OBSERVATORY Cas A in Motion Illustration This movie is a sequence of images from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory taken from 2000 to This allows astronomers to see Cas A over a new dimension – time – and watch how the entire structure as well as individual features evolve.

CHANDRA X-RAY OBSERVATORY Cas A in Motion Illustration Scientific Value: -Study of “proper motion” of different features including shock waves -Ability to monitor variations in the brightness of X-rays across the remnant

CHANDRA X-RAY OBSERVATORY Cas A in 3D A separate result from a different group shows Cas A coming alive in a different way – through the third dimension of space. Utilizing a technique borrowed from medical imaging, astronomers now have a way to travel through the heart of Cas A using data from NASA’s Chandra and Spitzer telescopes.

CHANDRA X-RAY OBSERVATORY A New Way to Visualize Cas A Motion Graphic 3-D Fly-Through of Cas A: -Allows multiple data sets to be viewed simultaneously -Shows new features unseen in traditional 2-D data sets -Reveals details of how the parent star exploded

CHANDRA X-RAY OBSERVATORY STELLAR EVOLUTION Stellar Ev

CHANDRA X-RAY OBSERVATORY BIRTH OF A NEUTRON STAR Neutron Star At the end of its evolution, the central core of a massive star collapses to form a neutron star. This collapse releases a tremendous amounts of energy that powers a supernova explosion.

CHANDRA X-RAY OBSERVATORY HISTORIC SUPERNOVAS Historic SNRs Every 50 years or so, a star in our Galaxy blows itself apart in a supernova explosion, one of the most violent events in the universe. The force of these explosions produces spectacular light shows. Explosions in past millennia have been bright enough to catch the attention of early astronomers hundreds of years before the telescope had been invented.

CHANDRA X-RAY OBSERVATORY REQUEST THE HISTORIC SUPERNOVA POSTER IN BULK AT Resources

CHANDRA X-RAY OBSERVATORY MORE INFORMATION AT CHANDRA URLs Cas A (Embargoed until 1/6, 1pm): Related Images: Animations & Video: Resources: SNR Demos: