General

Take a look at "The Bigger Picture," a blog produced by the Smithsonian Photography Initiative (SPI). It aims to present an inside look at the Smithsonian's photography collections and invites audiences to engage in an online discussion about photography's powerful impact on our world. We contributed a post on "Seeing the Invisible (part I)" that you might enjoy: http://blog.photography.si.edu/2009/05/11/seeing-the-invisible/

-Kim Arcand, CXC

This week, the Space Shuttle Atlantis will return to the Hubble Space Telescope for a fifth and final time. The mission will bring the telescope new instruments, batteries, and gyroscopes that will extend its lifetime for hopefully several years or more.

This year marks the 10th anniversary that the Shuttle launched and deployed Chandra . There haven't been any visits since and none will ever take place. That's because Chandra was designed to be different than Hubble -- in more ways than just the type of radiation it detects.

We've been publicizing and distributing Chandra results for nearly ten years now. One interesting trend we've watched over this time is how much things have changed in how people get their information. Back in the day, we would write a press release - sometimes even printing on paper! – and this would go to science reporters, who, in turn, would write articles for their newspapers, radio programs, or TV reports. The public would generally learn about our results by seeing them through these outlets.

This week, we released a new result that combines data from Chandra with two other telescopes (MacsJ0717.) The truth is that the multiple-telescope approach is probably no longer the exception - rather it has become the rule.

Solar panels have been in the news a lot lately. First, the Space Shuttle Discovery launched to bring the final set of solar panels to the International Space Station. Then the astronauts onboard the ISS got a call from an interested member of the public - President Barack Obama - who wanted to talk, among other things, about how the ISS uses solar power to generate its energy.

Well, as it turns out, the ISS is far from the only spacecraft up there using solar power. John Scott, a mission planner for Chandra's Flight Operation Team, describes how NASA's premier X-ray observatory is as green as can be.

On Friday, April 3rd, the public will have a chance to get an inside peek at how the Chandra X-ray Observatory is run. That's because we're participating in the "Around the World in 80 Telescopes" project that's part of the International Year of Astronomy's "100 Hours" program.

You may have noticed that NASA is running an event mirroring the annual extravaganza that is the NCAA basketball tournament. Instead of selecting the basketball teams you think will win (I'm rooting for a certain Big 10 team myself), you vote for your favorite NASA mission.

NASA announced today the selection of its 2009 Fellows, who are scientists who were recently (that is, since Jan. 1, 2006) awarded PhDs in astronomy, physics, or a related field. These new fellows can do research at any host institution in the US that they choose, and they represent some of the best and brightest in the field.

As most of you probably know, Chandra is a NASA mission. But, like with children, it sometimes takes a village to raise a mission. In Chandra's case, not only did it take many individuals to make it a success, it has required many institutions and organizations as well. (For a more comprehensive list, see https://www.chandra.harvard.edu/about/axaf_mission.html) But one frequent question we get is: why do you have "Harvard" in your website's name?

Enjoy new Chandra images recently added to the Flickr Commons SI photostream.