Chandra Digest (Jan 9) AAS Update
Some intriguing new results from Chandra this week at the American
Astronomical Society ‘s (AAS) 199th meeting in Washington DC:
** X-Ray Mosaic Of Galactic Center: Chandra Takes In The Bright Lights,
Big City Of The Milky Way
NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory has made a stunning, high-energy
panorama of the central regions of our Milky Way galaxy. The
observations enabled astronomers to determine the nature of the hot gas
that pervades the region and better understand how it enriches the
galactic suburbs with heavy elements.
http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2002/gcenter/
** Abell 2597: Chandra Finds Ghosts Of Eruption In Galaxy Cluster
“Ghostly” relics of an ancient eruption that tore through a cluster of
galaxies have been found by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. The
discovery implies that galaxy clusters are the sites of enormously
energetic and recurring explosions, and may provide an explanation why
galaxy clusters behave like giant cosmic magnets.
http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2002/1269/
** X-ray Gas Associated With Galactic Center Radio Arc
Chandra observations of a region of the Galactic Center have found an
X-ray filament and cloud about 40 light years across. These
X-ray features are associated with large filamentary and shell-like
structures that are bright sources of radio waves.
http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2002/gradioarc/
** Operations CXO Status Report (Friday 01/04/02)
Happy New Year from the Chandra Team!
During the last two weeks the observing schedule was interrupted once
following a high radiation event at 1:30am EST on Dec 26 that stopped
the daily load and activated the science instrument safing sequence
(SCS 107). All actions were nominal and radiation levels dropped
sufficiently to allow the loads to be restarted at 6pm on Dec 27.
Observations of Beta Ceti, G78.2+2.1, CYG X-1, A168 were impacted by
the event and will be rescheduled in a later load.
http://chandra.harvard.edu/press/updates/update_010402.html
NEW & NOTEWORTHY!
++ Scale & Distance
Calculate the distance for two points on the sky at the same distance
from Earth with our interactive calculator. http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/scale_distance.html
++ All recent New & Noteworthy features are available at
http://chandra.harvard.edu/new.html
