The Chandra Observatory captured its first images of the supernova remnant Cassiopeia A on August 26, 1999. This was the beginning of a new chapter in space research. It has since rendered almost 25 thousand observations of supernova remnants, neutron stars, quasars, black holes, galaxy clusters and many other cosmic events and objects increasing knowledge of the universe.
In particular, the first of these images – that of a neutron star inside Cassiopeia A – sheds light on the performance of emerging neutron stars which had remained vexing to the scientists for a long time. “When you build instrumentation that’s 10 times more sensitive than anything that was done before, you’re bound to discover something new and exciting” said Chandra project scientist Martin Weisskopf.
Chandra has advanced the study of dark matter, dark energy, and gravitational waves and the search for exoplanets in the habitable zones. Their work has benefited the international scientific community immensely.
To commemorate the achievement and the landmark of Chandra, Nasa and CXC has published 25 more pictures and the new video ‘Eye on the Cosmos’ that shows the relevance and the contribution of Chandra in the field of astrophysics and furthering the knowledge of the universe under Chandra X-ray Centre.
From a long-term perspective, the Chandra data archive is still an essential archive of data as more observations are yet to be made in the future. This, as acting Chandra program manager Andrew Schnell put it, ‘perhaps it’s greatest discovery hasn’t been discovered yet’. ‘There is it in our data archive; it is just that nobody has asked that question to the data so as to make sense of it.’
Cooperatively run by Nasa’s Marshall Space Flight Center together with CXC, Chandra’s legacy remains benefiting the following generations of astronomers and astrophysics. “In a sense, we treat every new scientific understanding as a potential way to put ourselves out of business.” is rather a sad remark, Weisskopf, former NASA. “But these astonishing discoveries have shown how much more NASA’s astrophysics missions can teach us.”
