Eideard

Print your own 2012 Chandra calendar with spectacular images from the past year. Featured objects include supernova remnants, galaxies in various shapes & sizes and star clusters in our very own Milky Way. Available as a 12-page full color PDF in 17×11″ sizes. Individual months may also be downloaded separately.

Glorious, gorgeous, send a link to your favorite flat-earther.

Print your own 2011 Chandra calendar with spectacular images from the past year. Featured objects include supernova remnants, galaxies in various shapes & sizes and star clusters in our very own Milky Way. Available as a 12-page full color PDF in 17×11″ sizes. Individual months may also be downloaded.

Look over here for three variations on this theme – from the latest research from Chandra.

A star’s spectacular death in the constellation Taurus was observed on Earth as the supernova of 1054 A.D. Now, almost a thousand years later, a super dense object — called a neutron star — left behind by the explosion is seen spewing out a blizzard of high-energy particles into the expanding debris field known as the Crab Nebula. X-ray data from Chandra provide significant clues to the workings of this mighty cosmic “generator,” which is producing energy at the rate of 100,000 suns.

This composite image uses data from three of NASA’s Great Observatories. The Chandra X-ray image is shown in blue, the Hubble Space Telescope optical image is in red and yellow, and the Spitzer Space Telescope’s infrared image is in purple. The X-ray image is smaller than the others because extremely energetic electrons emitting X-rays radiate away their energy more quickly than the lower-energy electrons emitting optical and infrared light. Along with many other telescopes, Chandra has repeatedly observed the Crab Nebula over the course of the mission’s lifetime. The Crab Nebula is one of the most studied objects in the sky, truly making it a cosmic icon.

Back in 1054 – this scared the Beejeebus out of your everyday superstitious supplicant. Couldn’t happen today – right?

* Chandra’s getting lots of traffic on this. May take forever to load. Sorry!

A small, dense object only twelve miles in diameter is responsible for this beautiful X-ray nebula that spans 150 light years. At the center of this image made by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory is a very young and powerful pulsar, known as PSR B1509-58, or B1509 for short. The pulsar is a rapidly spinning neutron star which is spewing energy out into the space around it to create complex and intriguing structures, including one that resembles a large cosmic hand. In this image, the lowest energy X-rays that Chandra detects are red, the medium range is green, and the most energetic ones are colored blue. Astronomers think that B1509 is about 1700 years old and is located about 17,000 light years away.

Neutron stars are created when massive stars run out of fuel and collapse. B1509 is spinning completely around almost 7 times every second and is releasing energy into its environment at a prodigious rate – presumably because it has an intense magnetic field at its surface, estimated to be 15 trillion times stronger than the Earth’s magnetic field.

The combination of rapid rotation and ultra-strong magnetic field makes B1509 one of the most powerful electromagnetic generators in the Galaxy. This generator drives an energetic wind of electrons and ions away from the neutron star. As the electrons move through the magnetized nebula, they radiate away their energy and create the elaborate nebula seen by Chandra.

Chandra is a true favorite for so many astronomy buffs. Including yours truly.