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Chandra, named in honor of the late Indian American astrophysicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, launched to space aboard the space shuttle Columbia on 23 July 1999.
The crew, including STS-93 Commander Eileen Collins, deployed the telescope into its oval-shaped orbit, which takes Chandra on a path around Earth that is nearly one-third of the distance to the moon.
So far, Chandra has taken nearly 25,000 observations of the universe.
The telescope observes the cosmos through X-ray light, which is invisible to the human eye.
X-rays are released by some of the most energetic events and hottest objects in the universe, including exploded stars, material swirling around black holes, galactic collisions and even exoplanets.
Chandra plays a key role not only as an X-ray telescope but in providing data that pairs with observations from other telescopes.
Combined, all of those wavelengths of light provide a more complete picture that enables astronomers to solve the universe’s lingering mysteries.
24 July 2024
