The Chandra X-Ray Observatory (CXO)

Abstract

The Chandra X-Ray Observatory (CXO), the x-ray component of NASA's Great Observatories, was launched early in the morning of 1999, July 23 by the Space Shuttle Columbia. The Shuttle launch was only the first step in placing the observatory in orbit. After release from the cargo bay, the Inertial Upper Stage performed two firings, and separated from the observatory as planned. Finally, after five firings of Chandra's own Integral Propulsion System -the last of which took place 15 days after launch -the observatory was placed in its highly elliptical orbit of ∼140,000 km apogee and ∼10,000 km perigee. After activation, the first x-rays focussed by the telescope were observed on 1999, August 12. Beginning with these initial observations one could see that the telescope had survived the launch environment and was operating as expected. The month following the opening of the sunshade door was spent adjusting the focus for each set of instrument configurations, determining the optical axis, calibrating the star camera, establishing the relative response functions, determining energy scales, and taking a series of "publicity" images. Each observation proved to be far more revealing than was expected. Finally, and despite an initial surprise and setback due to the discovery that the Chandra x-ray telescope was far more efficient for concentrating low-energy protons than had been anticipated, the observatory is performing well and is returning superb scientific data. Together with other space observatories, most notably the recently activated XMM-Newton, it is clear that we are entering a new era of discovery in high-energy astrophysics.

Cosmic X-ray surveys of distant active galaxies

“…Our emphasis will thus be on results from the Chandra X-ray Observatory (hereafter Chandra; e.g., Weisskopf et al 2000), the X-ray Multi-Mirror Mission (hereafter XMM-Newton; e.g., Jansen et al 2001), and the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (hereafter NuSTAR; e.g., Harrison et al 2013). The new results from these missions rest squarely upon a rich heritage of X-ray survey studies with several superb earlier X-ray missions, as briefly described in, e.g., Section 3.1.…”

Observation of the new emission line at ~3.5 keV in X-ray spectra of galaxies and galaxy clusters

“…Properties of the ∼3.5 keV line reported by[70,71]. For their analysis, the authors of[70,71] use different Xray datasets observed by MOS[73] and PN[72] cameras on-board XMM-Newton observatory[74] and ACIS instrument[76] on-board Chandra observatory[77]. All error bars are at 1σ (68%) level.…”

Search for black holes

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