NASA released stunning images to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Chandra X-ray Observatory launch. The Chandra team shared an image of a galaxy that has never been witnessed before — it’s a spiral galaxy in the Pavo (Peacock) constellation.
Chandra has collected nearly 25,000 images “over its time in space,” USA Today reported.
NGC 1365 for Chandra’s 25th Anniversary (Chandra/Webb composite) This spiral galaxy contains a supermassive black hole and stars rapidly forming in its center. Chandra sees X-rays from gas near the massive black hole and from smaller black holes or neutron stars pulling material from companion stars. X-rays from Chandra (blue); optical from VLT (yellow and blue); infrared from Webb (red, green, and blue) | X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: ESO/VLT; Infrared: NASA/ESA/STScI/JWST/PHANGS; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare, J. Major SN 1987A for Chandra’s 25th Anniversary (Chandra/Webb/Hubble composite) The supernova explosion that created this object was first observed on Earth in February 1987. Chandra sees X-rays produced by debris from the explosion. X-rays from Chandra (purple); optical and infrared from Hubble (red, green, blue); infrared from Webb (red, green, and blue) | X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical/Infrared: NASA/ESA/STScI; Infrared: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/J. Major
It “observed the cosmic objects for up to thousands of hours,” and “it took the telescope 64 days of observation time and 370 observations over the course of 20 years to capture an image of the Milky Way’s center, about 26,000 light-years away from earth,” per USA Today.
NGC 3324 for Chandra’s 25th Anniversary (Chandra/Webb composite) Astronomers nicknamed this region of star formation the “Cosmic Cliffs,” which is found in the nearby Carina Nebula. X-rays from young stars in two clusters are detected by Chandra. X-rays from Chandra (purple); infrared from Webb (yellow, green, cyan, and blue) | X-ray: NASA/CXC/Ludwig Maximilian Univ./T. Preibisch et al.; Infrared: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI; Image processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/N. Wolk Orion Nebula for Chandra’s 25th Anniversary (Chandra/Webb composite) The Cassiopeia A supernova remnant has been observed for more than 2 million seconds since the start of the Chandra mission in 1999. X-rays from Chandra (blue); infrared from Webb (orange, white, and blue) | X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Infrared: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI/D. Milisavljevic (Purdue Univ.), I. De Looze (UGent), T. Temim (Princeton Univ.); Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/J. Major, J. Schmidt and K. Arcand
The images from the observatory have “helped scientists learn more about dark matter, dark energy and dark holes,” according to CBS News.
WR 124 for Chandra’s 25th Anniversary (Chandra/Webb/Hersche/Spitzer/WISE composite) WR 124 is a rare type of Wolf-Rayet star, a bright, massive star experiencing a short-lived phase in its evolution. A dense wind from the star may prevent the detection with Chandra of a neutron star companion. X-rays from Chandra (purple); infrared from Herschel, Spitzer, WISE (blue) and Webb (red, green, and blue) | X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Infrared: (Herschel) ESA/NASA/Caltech, (Spitzer) NASA/JPL/Caltech, (WISE) NASA/JPL/Caltech; Infrared: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI/Webb ERO Production Team; Image processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/J. Major NGC 7469 for Chandra’s 25th Anniversary (Chandra/Webb/Hubble composite) NGC 7469 is a spiral galaxy, seen face on, that contains a growing supermassive black hole. Chandra shows hot gas near the black hole. X-rays from Chandra (purple); optical/IR from Hubble (red, green, and blue); infrared image from Webb (red, green, and blue) | X-ray: NASA/CXC/Xiamen Univ./X. Xu; Optical/Infrared: NASA/ESA/UVA, NRAO, SUNY at Stony Brook/A. S. Evans, Hubble Heritage–ESA/Hubble Collaboration; Infrared: NASA/ESA/CSA/L. Armus, A. S. Evans; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/J. Major Orion Nebula for Chandra’s 25th Anniversary (Chandra/Webb composite) One of the closest regions of star formation to Earth, newly-formed stars in the Orion Nebula are detected by Chandra. X-rays from Chandra (magenta) and infrared from Webb (red, green, and blue). | X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Infrared: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/K. Arcand and J. Major Vivid Portrait of Interacting Galaxies Marks Webb’s Second Anniversary (NIRCam and MIRI)
This new Webb image shows two galaxies: a Penguin (NGC 2936) guarding an Egg (NGC 2937). Webb’s observations reveal the two are in a cosmic hug, joined together by a blue haze of stars and gas.
We’re shaped by those closest to us, and this pair is no different. The galaxies have been merging for tens of millions of years, and will eventually become one. In fact, only about 100,000 light-years separate the Penguin and the Egg. (To compare, our Milky Way and its neighboring Andromeda Galaxy are about 2.5 million light-years apart!)
Two years ago, we revealed Webb’s first images to the world. Since then, it has discovered the most distant known galaxy, opened a new window into the atmospheres of other worlds, and provided unparalleled insight into the birth of stars and planets. We can’t wait to see how Webb will guide the next generation of explorers.
| NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI Rho Ophiuchi Composite (Chandra/Webb composite) This is a composite image from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and the James Webb Space Telescope. Pictured is Rho Ophiuchi, at a distance of about 390 light-years from Earth. Rho Ophiuchi is a cloud complex filled with gas and stars of different sizes and ages. Being one of the closest star-forming regions, Rho Ophiuchi is a great place for astronomers to study young stars. In this image, X-rays from Chandra are purple and reveal the hot, outer atmospheres of infant stars. Infrared data from Webb’s NIRCam is red, yellow, cyan, light blue, and darker blue and provides views of the spectacular regions of gas and dust. | Space Telescope Science Institut Orion Nebula (Chandra/Webb composite) This is a composite image from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and the James Webb Space Telescope. Pictured is the Orion Nebula, a giant cloud where stars are forming. Still located in the Milky Way galaxy, this region is a little bit farther from our home planet at about 1,500 light-years away. If you look just below the middle of the three stars that make up the “belt” in the constellation of Orion, you may be able to see this nebula through a small telescope. With Chandra and Webb, however, we get to see so much more. Chandra reveals young stars that glow brightly in X-rays, colored in red, green, and blue, while Webb shows the gas and dust in darker red that will help build the next generation of stars here. | Chandra X-ray Observatory Center NGC 3627 (Chandra/Webb/Hubble composite) This is a composite image from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, the Hubble Space Telescope, and the James Webb Space Telescope. Pictured is galaxy NGC 3627, located 36 million light-years away.
Like the Milky Way, NGC 3627 is a spiral galaxy that we see at a slight angle. NGC 3627 is known as a “barred” spiral galaxy because of the rectangular shape of its central region. From our vantage point, we can also see two distinct spiral arms that appear as arcs. X-rays from Chandra in purple show evidence for a supermassive black hole in its center as well as other dense objects like neutron stars and black holes pulling in matter. Meanwhile Webb finds the dust, gas, and stars throughout the galaxy in red, green, and blue. This image also contains optical data from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope in red, green, and blue.
| Space Telescope Science Institut MACS J0416 (Chandra/Hubble/Webb composite) This is a composite image from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, the Hubble Space Telescope, and the James Webb Space Telescope. Pictured is galaxy cluster MACS J0416 at a distance of about 4.3 billion light-years from Earth.
Galaxy clusters are the largest objects in the universe held together by gravity, and ones like this can contain hundreds or even thousands of individual galaxies all immersed in massive amounts of superheated gas that Chandra can detect. In this view, Chandra’s X-rays in purple show this reservoir of hot gas while Hubble and Webb pick up the individual galaxies in red, green, and blue. The long thin lines are caused by matter in the cluster distorting the light from galaxies behind MACS J0416 in a process known as gravitational lensing.
| Space Telescope Science Institut Webb has captured a stellar phenomenon for the first time.
See how those bright red, clumpy streaks in the top left are all slanted in the same direction to the same degree? They show aligned protostellar outflows, or jets of gas from newborn stars.
“Astronomers have long assumed that as clouds collapse to form stars, the stars will tend to spin in the same direction,” said principal investigator Klaus Pontoppidan of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. “However, this has not been seen so directly before. These aligned, elongated structures are a historical record of the fundamental way that stars are born.”
Previously, the objects appeared as blobs or were invisible in optical wavelengths. Webb’s sensitive infrared vision was able to pierce through the thick dust, resolving the stars and their outflows.
This area is part of the Serpens Nebula. Located 1,300 light-years from Earth, it’s only 1-2 million years old — very young in cosmic terms! It’s home to a dense cluster of newly forming stars (about 100,000 years old), seen at the center of this image.
| NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Klaus Pontoppidan (NASA-JPL), Joel Green (STScI) The Crab Nebula (Webb/Chandra composite) The Crab Nebula, the result of a bright supernova explosion seen by Chinese and other astronomers in the year 1054, is 6,500 light-years from Earth. At its center is a neutron star, a super-dense star produced by the supernova. As it rotates at about 30 times per second, its beam of radiation passes over the Earth every orbit, like a cosmic lighthouse. As the young pulsar slows down, large amounts of energy are injected into its surroundings. In particular, a high-speed wind of matter and antimatter particles plows into the surrounding nebula, creating a shock wave that forms an expanding ring. Jets from the poles of the pulsar spew X-ray emitting matter and antimatter particles in a direction perpendicular to the ring. This image shows the X-ray data from Chandra along with infrared data from the Webb space telescope. | X-ray, Chandra: NASA/CXC/SAO; Infrared, Webb: NASA/STScI; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/J. Major
