Description: Chandra's spectacular image of the Antennae shows the central regions of two merging galaxies. The bright fuzzy patches are superbubbles thousands of light years in diameter that were produced by the accumulated power of thousands of supernovas. The dozens of bright point-like sources are neutron stars or black holes pulling gas off nearby stars. The remaining glow of X-ray emission could be due to many faint X-ray sources, or to clouds of hot gas in the galaxies.

Creator/Photographer: Chandra X-ray Observatory

NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, which was launched and deployed by Space Shuttle Columbia on July 23, 1999, is the most sophisticated X-ray observatory built to date. The mirrors on Chandra are the largest, most precisely shaped and aligned, and smoothest mirrors ever constructed. Chandra is helping scientists better understand the hot, turbulent regions of space and answer fundamental questions about origin, evolution, and destiny of the Universe. The images Chandra makes are twenty-five times sharper than the best previous X-ray telescope. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., manages the Chandra program for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory controls Chandra science and flight operations from the Chandra X-ray Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Medium: Chandra telescope x-ray

Date: 2004

Persistent URL: chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2000/0120/

Repository: Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory

Gift line: NASA/CXC/SAO/G. Fabbiano et al.