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study cosmic X-ray emissions, the leap from the last major X-ray satellite to Chandra is comparable to that from a large ground-based reflector to the Hubble Space Telescope.
X-ray astronomy reveals the universe at energies 1,000 times higher than optical astronomy.
Its a relatively new science and, as such, its a
long way behind optical astronomy. Todays best
X-ray telescopes are less capable than a 15-inch
backyard telescope. Really! They have smaller
collecting areas and poorer angular resolution.
The best X-ray images obtained to date have resolved details only as small as 5 arcseconds
across, though 1 arcminute is more typical. Any
decent backyard scope will show features as
small as 1 arcsecond on a good night. And, except in a few special cases, X-ray detectors have
telescope of 1610. Now, just 20 years later, Chandra is about to beat the traditional 1-arcsecond
limit of large ground-based telescopes, a breakthrough that took optical astronomy 380 years.
Although in the long march of history X-ray astronomy has moved pretty fast, Chandras coming
has felt pretty slow to those of us involved. The
concept originated with a May 1970 call to NASA
to build a large orbiting X-ray telescope. Astronomers Riccardo Giacconi and Herbert Gursky
made this bold proposal even before Uhurus successful launch, when only 20 cosmic X-ray sources
were known. This was too much for NASA at the
time, but it led directly to Einstein, the first X-ray
telescope to make images, and now to Chandra.
AXAF itself was first proposed to NASA in
1976, and though preliminary design work began
then, budget problems and the Challenger tragedy
delayed construction. Congress finally gave the
mission a green light in 1988, but more budget
trouble led to a radical downsizing in 1992. AXAF
was split into two smaller spacecraft, shedding two
mirrors, two scientific instruments, and 10,000
The universe contains much more than meets the eye. Need proof? A visible-light image (left)
of galaxy cluster Abell 1367 shows a gaggle of ordinary-looking spirals, ellipticals, and irregulars separated by empty space. But a false-color X-ray view (right) from the now-defunct
Rosat spacecraft reveals that the empty space between the galaxies is actually filled with
gas at temperatures of tens of millions of degrees.
CHANDRAS ANATOMY
Aspect camera
stray-light shade
Sunshade door
Spacecraft module
Thrusters (4)
(105 lb. each)
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Antenna
Telescope
The Chandra telescope will be the first to put X-ray imaging of the cosmos on a par with visiblelight imaging. At left is a Rosat image of the center of M87, the elliptical galaxy at the heart of the
Virgo Cluster. At a resolution of about 5 arcseconds, the galaxy appears to have a double nucleus.
The 12-arcsecond-resolution Chandra view simulated at right reveals the nucleus (at lower left)
and the narrow, lumpy jet of plasma known from earlier visible-light and radio observations.
The shorter the wavelength (the higher the energy) of the X-rays, the smaller
the grazing angles required for reflection,
and so the larger the f/ratio. A key goal
for Chandra is to capture images of
quasars and clusters of galaxies in the
light of the iron atoms K-shell emissionline complex, a telltale sign of energetic
activity. If we can study these spectral
features in detail something not possible before Chandra we should learn
much about the massive black holes
whose gravitational energy is believed to
Riding High
Chandras orbit is big too. Its apogee, or
farthest distance from Earth, is 140,000
kilometers (87,000 miles), well beyond
the 36,000-km geostationary altitude of
communication satellites and fully onethird of the way to the Moon. Its perigee
(closest approach to Earth) is 10,000 km,
far above the Space Shuttles maximum
altitude of 600 km. (For a personal look
at how Chandra will get into this unusual orbit, see astronaut Steven Hawleys
companion article on page 54.)
Keplers second law of planetary motion, which holds that the imaginary line
between a planet and the Sun sweeps out
equal areas in equal times, applies to
satellites in orbit around the Earth too.
This means that in its highly elongated
orbit Chandra will spend most of its
time near apogee. At this dizzying height
the Earth appears as a disk less than 5 in
diameter. So Chandra can observe virtually any target in the sky without the
X-rays are absorbed by ordinary mirrors, but at very small angles of incidence they can be reflected. The Chandra telescopes grazing-incidence
optics are the largest and most powerful ever built, focusing X-rays from
a point source into an image only 12 arcsecond in diameter.
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Perigee
Apogee
S&T DIAGRAM
Equal
areas
Chandras orbital motion in 4 hours
near perigee and apogee
Unlike most space telescopes, which stay relatively close to home, the Chandra X-ray
Observatory will orbit the Earth in a highly elongated path that carries it one-third
of the way to the Moon every 64.2 hours. Thanks to Keplers second law of orbital motion, illustrated here, the observatory will spend most of each orbit
near apogee. From this vantage the Earth blocks only a tiny fraction of the
sky, enabling the telescope to spend some 80 percent of its time productively.
1: One of the Chandra Observatorys eight cylindrical mirror blanks undergoes grinding and polishing to its final paraboloidal figure at Hughes Danbury (now Raytheon) Optical Systems. 2: An
other mirror receives a final visual check before getting coated with highly reflective iridium. 3: A
Kodak engineer inspects Chandras nested paraboloidal mirrors before aligning and mating them
with the nested hyperboloids visible in the background. The mirrors are 0.8 meter long and range
in diameter from 0.6 to 1.2 meters. During the extremely precise assembly process an unexpected
0.1 Celsius rise in room temperature caused by heat from the ambient fluorescent lighting
actually distorted the figure of one mirror measurably but not enough to affect its performance
significantly. 4: Technicians work on the spacecraft module, which contains the computers, elec48
something weve never encountered before. We suspect they may be free-floating neutron stars that are not producing
intense pulsar radiation but are glowing
gently as interstellar material rains down
onto them. Is this really what we found?
Chandra will return such precise positions that it will pinpoint exactly where
to aim Hubble or large ground-based
telescopes to look for faint visible counterparts to these X-ray sources, and then
well know. I was lucky enough to be
awarded a small amount of observing
time with Chandra to do just that.
Sharp images allow us to see not only
faint objects but also fine details. I have
heard some astronomers dismiss mere
imaging and insist that only spectroscopy
can lead to a real physical understanding
of how celestial objects work. I agree that
spectra are powerful, but images can be
powerful too. Like most S&T readers, I
grew up looking at ground-based pictures and marveling at the mysteries they
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Sky & Telescope August 1999
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SPACE IMAGING
These satellite images of San Francisco, California, illustrate why angular resolution is crucial to
understanding what we see. The left-hand image, with a resolution of 100 meters, shows us the
general layout of the San Francisco Bay area and provides a context for the close-ups that follow. The middle image (10-meter resolution) reveals an odd assortment of geometric patterns.
Only when we see the right-hand image (1-meter resolution) do we realize that were looking
at San Franciscos airport. Equating the first two images to the views from past X-ray telescopes, the last image indicates the improvement offered by the Chandra X-ray Observatory.
Chandras transmission gratings disperse the X-rays from extended objects into a spectrum
thats actually a series of distinct images, one for each emission line. Here is a simulated X-ray
spectrum of supernova remnant N132D in the Large Magellanic Cloud, as recorded by Chandras AXAF CCD Imaging Spectrometer. In order to fit a wide span of wavelengths onto the
cameras not-so-wide detectors, the gratings split the spectrum into two strips.
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ed to interpret the data. The existing software for modeling the spectra of high-energy sources is based on work done in the
1970s. And few of us have a very detailed
knowledge of atomic physics at X-ray energies. So the Chandra X-ray Observatory Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts,
where the data will be received and
processed, has created a tiger team to pull
together the huge number of laboratory
measurements and calculations needed to
support X-ray spectroscopy with Chandra.
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And visit these Web sites* to read more about the X-ray astronomy missions scheduled to follow Chandra (see page 56):
sci.esa.int/xmm
lheawww.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/xray/astroe
constellation.gsfc.nasa.gov
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