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Portrait Gallery of the X-Ray universe

Have you ever visited an art museum? You can choose to walk through the halls looking at paintings, reading the labels, and making your own interpretations; or, you can choose a guided tour with a museum docent. Docents are skilled and knowledgeable guides who can describe the paintings, give the history and background, and provide interesting details not readily apparent or known by the observer. A guided interpretation by a docent leaves a visitor with a feeling of wonder, awe, and new knowledge!

Your Task:
Imagine you are the docent at a new art museum- The Chandra Portrait Gallery of the X-Ray universe. The art museum contains never-before-seen portraits of galaxy clusters, exploding stars, pulsars, turbulent regions of space around black holes, and more! To make the museum, interesting and informative, it is your job, as a docent, to explain the portraits to visitors so they can appreciate and understand what they are looking at.

This task consists of two parts:
Part I: The Portrait
Part II: The Guided Interpretation

Part I:
Choose a false-color X-ray image from the Chandra Web Site at http://chandra.harvard.edu. Using any art medium you choose, create a "framed" gallery portrait of that image. Be sure your portrait accurately represents the detail of the image. Create a label with the name of your portrait and the artist. Affix your label to the portrait.

Part II:
Either perform or write out a guided interpretation of the portrait that will be given by a docent to the general public. Your guided interpretation should include:
  1. A detailed description of the cosmic object in the portrait.
  2. Where the cosmic object was found, including an explanation of the vast distance.
  3. How the cosmic object was observed and translated into a visual image that could be captured in the portrait.
  4. Interesting and relevant scientific information astronomers have gained or are investigating from the cosmic object in your portrait.
Remember- your guided interpretation will be given to the general public. Be sure to communicate clearly and effectively so all visitors to the museum will understand your description.

Good luck and I can't wait to see and hear about these fascinating portraits!


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Revised: August 29, 2006