1. CHANDRA X-RAY OBSERVATORY HTTP://CHANDRA.HARVARD.EDU BLACK HOLE FIRES AT NEIGHBORING GALAXY BLACK HOLE FIRES AT NEIGHBORING GALAXY Dr. Dan Evans NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics Title

2. CHANDRA X-RAY OBSERVATORY HTTP://CHANDRA.HARVARD.EDU 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

3. CHANDRA X-RAY OBSERVATORY HTTP://CHANDRA.HARVARD.EDU 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

4. CHANDRA X-RAY OBSERVATORY HTTP://CHANDRA.HARVARD.EDU 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

5. CHANDRA X-RAY OBSERVATORY HTTP://CHANDRA.HARVARD.EDU 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

6. CHANDRA X-RAY OBSERVATORY HTTP://CHANDRA.HARVARD.EDU 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

7. CHANDRA X-RAY OBSERVATORY HTTP://CHANDRA.HARVARD.EDU 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 http://chandra.harvard.edu/resources/animations/mirror_comparison_lg.mpg

8. CHANDRA X-RAY OBSERVATORY HTTP://CHANDRA.HARVARD.EDU 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.movhttp://chandra.harvard.edu/resources/animations/Dana_BShot_lg_web.mov

9. CHANDRA X-RAY OBSERVATORY HTTP://CHANDRA.HARVARD.EDU 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.

10. CHANDRA X-RAY OBSERVATORY HTTP://CHANDRA.HARVARD.EDU 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. 3C3213C321

11. CHANDRA X-RAY OBSERVATORY HTTP://CHANDRA.HARVARD.EDU 3C321: MULTIWAVELENGTH, WORKING TOGETHER Multiwavelengt h Views 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.

12. CHANDRA X-RAY OBSERVATORY HTTP://CHANDRA.HARVARD.EDU 3C321 Motion Graphic 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

13. CHANDRA X-RAY OBSERVATORY HTTP://CHANDRA.HARVARD.EDU IN CONTEXT (X-ray & Radio Full Field) Large FoV Jet

14. CHANDRA X-RAY OBSERVATORY HTTP://CHANDRA.HARVARD.EDU DEATH STAR ILLUSTRATION Illustration

15. CHANDRA X-RAY OBSERVATORY HTTP://CHANDRA.HARVARD.EDU ANIMATION Animation

16. CHANDRA X-RAY OBSERVATORY HTTP://CHANDRA.HARVARD.EDU REQUEST CHANDRA RESOURCES Resources http://chandra.harvard.edu/edu/request.html

17. CHANDRA X-RAY OBSERVATORY HTTP://CHANDRA.HARVARD.EDU MORE INFORMATION AT CHANDRA URLs 3C321 (Embargoed until 12/17): http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2007/3c321 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.html http://chandra.harvard.edu/edu/anim.html