An overview of the Chandra mission and goals, Chandra's namesake, top 10 facts.
Classroom activities, printable materials, interactive games & more.
Overview of X-ray Astronomy and X-ray sources: black holes to galaxy clusters.
All Chandra images released to the public listed by date & by category
Current Chandra press releases, status reports, interviews & biographies.
A collection of multimedia, illustrations & animations, a glossary, FAQ & more.
A collection of illustrations, animations and video.
Chandra discoveries in an audio/video format.
Q&A: Chandra Mission
What is the aperture size, the resolution, and the reflector
material of Chandra's mirrors?
Chandra mirrors use grazing incidence
reflections to focus X-rays, so the mirrors are barrel-shaped
rather than dish-shaped. Chandra's mirror assembly consists of a
nested array of four mirror pairs (Two reflections are required
to make an image). The largest mirror has an outer diameter of 4
feet (1.2 m). The effective area of the mirror assembly ranges
from about 800 square cm at wavelengths longer than 6 Angstroms
down to 40 square cm at the shortest wavelengths.
The resolution of the mirrors is one-half arc second.
The mirrors are coated with iridium.
Find
out more about Chandra's specifications
