University of Pennsylvania Physics & Astronomy Colloquium
Twenty-five Years of Science with Chandra
Chandra is one of NASA's "great observatories" and was launched in 1999. In this talk, I will review Chandra's history and instruments and show highlights from an absolutely astonishing 25 years of science observations.
A "30 ft orbiting X-ray telescope" was first proposed by Riccardo Giacconi in the 1960's, and today's Chandra grew out of that idea. I will describe the mirrors, instruments, and technologies in Chandra and show how it was put together and launched into orbit. Chandra has looked at a vast range of objects in the last 25 years, and I will highlight and explain just a few of them: quasars, jets, supermassive black holes, galaxy clusters, supernova remnants, stars, star forming regions, planets, and comets. I will show some examples of how we deal with the challenges of operating a aging observatory. Unfortunately, Chandra's funding environment is uncertain, but I will provide an update on NASA's current funding promises and plans.