{"id":429365,"date":"2026-01-24T02:57:17","date_gmt":"2026-01-24T02:57:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/429365\/"},"modified":"2026-01-24T02:57:17","modified_gmt":"2026-01-24T02:57:17","slug":"nasas-chandra-releases-deep-cut-from-catalog-of-cosmic-recordings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/429365\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA’s Chandra Releases Deep Cut From Catalog of Cosmic Recordings"},"content":{"rendered":"

Like a recording artist who has had a long career,\u00a0NASA\u2019s Chandra X-ray Observatory<\/a>\u00a0has a \u201cback catalog\u201d of cosmic recordings that is impossible to replicate. To access these X-ray tracks, or observations, the ultimate compendium has been developed: the\u00a0Chandra Source Catalog<\/a>\u00a0(CSC).<\/p>\n

The CSC contains the\u00a0X-ray<\/a>\u00a0data detected up to the end of 2020 by Chandra, the world\u2019s premier X-ray telescope and one of NASA\u2019s \u201cGreat Observatories.\u201d The latest version of the CSC, known as CSC 2.1, contains over 400,000 unique compact and extended sources and over 1.3 million individual detections in X-ray light.<\/p>\n

Within the CSC, there is a wealth of information gleaned from the Chandra observations \u2014 from precise positions on the sky to information about the the X-ray energies detected. This allows scientists using other telescopes \u2014 both on the ground and in space including NASA\u2019s James Webb and Hubble Space Telescopes \u2014 to combine this unique X-ray data with information from other types of light.<\/p>\n

The richness of the Chandra Source Catalog is illustrated in a new image of the Galactic Center, the region around the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy called Sagittarius A*. In this image that spans just about 60\u00a0light-years<\/a>\u00a0across, a veritable pinprick on the entire sky, Chandra has detected over 3,300 individual sources that emit X-rays. This image is the sum of 86 observations added together, representing over three million seconds of Chandra observing time.<\/p>\n

Another new representation of the vast scope of the Chanda Source Catalog is found in a just-released sonification, the translation of astronomical data into sound. This sonification encompasses the new map that includes 22 years of Chandra observations across the sky, beginning from its launch through its observations in 2021. Because many X-ray sources have been observed multiple times over the life of the Chandra mission, this sonification represents those repeat X-ray sightings over time through different notes.<\/p>\n

In the view of the sky, projected in a similar way to how the Earth is often depicted in world maps, the core of the\u00a0Milky Way<\/a>\u00a0is in the center and the Galactic plane is horizontal across the middle of the image. A circle appears at the position of each detection and the size of the circle is determined by the number of detections in that location over time. A year counter appears at the top of the frame. Since Chandra continues to be fully operational, the text changes to \u201c\u2026 and beyond\u201d after 2021 as the telescope continues to collect observations. During the video, a collage of images produced by Chandra fades in as a background. In the final frames of the video, thumbnail images representing the thousands of Chandra observations taken over the lifetime of the mission appear behind the sky map.<\/p>\n

The most recent version of the Chandra Source Catalog can be accessed at\u00a0https:\/\/cxc.cfa.harvard.edu\/csc\/<\/a><\/p>\n

NASA\u2019s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the Chandra program. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory\u2019s Chandra X-ray Center controls science operations from Cambridge, Massachusetts, and flight operations from Burlington, Massachusetts.<\/p>\n

To learn more about Chandra, visit:<\/p>\n

https:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/chandra<\/a><\/p>\n

Read more from NASA\u2019s Chandra X-ray Observatory<\/a><\/p>\n

Learn more about the Chandra X-ray Observatory and its mission here:<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/chandra<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/chandra.si.edu<\/a><\/p>\n

A very deep Chandra X-ray Observatory image around the Sagittarius A* supermassive black hole, located in the center of the Milky Way galaxy, is shown. The image is dominated by burnt orange, deep gold and blue hues, with a sprinkling of rich green. The area looks both intricate and full, with a dense population of tiny dots, along with larger clumps and diffuse areas and nebulous areas peeking through.<\/p>\n

At the center of the image, there is a bright, lumpy area in pale gold showing the intense X-ray radiation emanating from the Sagittarius A* black hole. In the surrounding area, there are more smaller lumps layered throughout, feathering out to a large almost butterfly shape filling much of the screen. The image appears textured, like dozens of blue and orange glow worms are paused in their wriggling.<\/p>\n

The image offers an unprecedented view of lobes of hot gas extending for a dozen light years on either side of the black hole. These lobes provide evidence for powerful eruptions occurring several times over the last ten thousand years. The image also contains several mysterious X-ray filaments, some of which may be huge magnetic structures interacting with streams of energetic electrons produced by rapidly spinning neutron stars. Such features are known as pulsar wind nebulas. Chandra has detected over 3,300 individual sources that emit X-rays in this field of view. This image is the sum of 86 observations added together, representing over three million seconds of Chandra observing time.<\/p>\n

Megan Watzke
Chandra X-ray Center
Cambridge, Mass.
617-496-7998
mwatzke@cfa.harvard.edu<\/a><\/p>\n

Joel Wallace
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama
256-544-0034
joel.w.wallace@nasa.gov<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Like a recording artist who has had a long career,\u00a0NASA\u2019s Chandra X-ray Observatory\u00a0has a \u201cback catalog\u201d of cosmic…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":429366,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[49,48,3509,3673,3512,3513,66,306],"class_list":{"0":"post-429365","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-chandra-x-ray-observatory","11":"tag-general","12":"tag-marshall-astrophysics","13":"tag-marshall-space-flight-center","14":"tag-science","15":"tag-space"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=429365"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429365\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/429366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=429365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=429365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=429365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}