Dozens of never-before-seen images of cosmic objects from the corners of the universe, captured by the world’s most powerful X-ray telescope, were released on Tuesday.
The breathtaking images, taken by the Chandra X-ray Observatory, were released by NASA in honor of the 25th anniversary of the telescope’s launch into space.
Taken with X-ray data collected by Chandra, the images show a stunning array of phenomena, from the remains of a supernova to a nebula thousands of light-years from Earth to the center of the Milky Way galaxy, according to a study . NASA press release. The recently released images are part of almost 25,000 collected by Chandra throughout its time in space.
Chandra observed cosmic objects for up to thousands of hours, according to photo gallery released by NASA. For example, the telescope took 64 days of observation and 370 observations over 20 years to capture an image of the center of the Milky Way, which is about 26,000 light-years away from Earth.
Other images show the vivid colors of nebulae, such as the crimson red of the Cat’s Paw Nebula, which is 4,370 light-years away from Earth, and the bright purple of the Crab Nebula in the constellation Taurus. An image shows Cassiopeia A, the remnant of a supernova from 340 years ago. Another is the product of almost 10 hours of observation of the planet Jupiter by Chandra.
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Chandra uses super-smooth mirrors to focus X-rays
Chandra, launched on July 23, 1999, is one of four major telescopes launched by NASA that decade, including the Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescopes and the Compton Gamma-ray Observatory. Only Chandra and Hubble are still in space.
“Astronomers have used Chandra to investigate mysteries we didn’t even know about when we were building the telescope — including exoplanets and dark energy,” Pat Slane, director of the Chandra X-ray Center at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, said in the press release.
Unlike Hubble, which traces a close circular path around Earth, Chandra traces an elliptical orbit around Earth, traveling as close as 6,000 miles and up to 86,400 miles from Earth in its 64-hour orbit.
Chandra is equipped with four pairs of the smoothest, cleanest mirrors ever made, according to NASA. The mirrors focus incoming X-rays to a point half the width of a human hair, where they are captured and recorded by Chandra’s scientific instruments.
Among Chandra’s observations are the oldest black hole ever discovered and two galaxies collidingg. The telescope also discovered the first evidence of existence of dark matter.
Cybele Mayes-Osterman is a breaking news reporter for USA Today. Contact her via email at cmayesosterman@usatoday.com. Follow her on X @CybeleMO.
This article originally appeared in USA TODAY: NASA releases stunning images of nebulae and galaxies in space
