General

Twenty-five years ago, the Space Shuttle Columbia launched into space carrying the Chandra X-ray Observatory. Press releases from the Chandra X-ray Center, CfA, and Smithsonian shared 25 new images with Chandra data to publicize this momentous milestone. A dedicated webpage to Chandra’s 25th birthday, plus the new images and press release, can be found at https://chandra.si.edu/25th/

NGC 3324
(Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; IR (Spitzer): NASA/JPL-Caltech; IR (Webb): NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI)

If you happen to be riding the Metro subway system in Washington, DC over the next few months, take a moment to check out the video displays. On six stations, images from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory will be featured as a cosmic distraction while you wait for the next train.

The guest blogger for this post is our own Dr. Kimberly Arcand, Visualization Lead and Emerging Technology Scientist for the Chandra X-ray Center. Kim has been working with Chandra since before the telescope’s launch and has been at the forefront of bringing Chandra data to the public in innovative ways. Some of her recent collaborations include the Chandra sonification project. In addition to being a NASA project, Chandra is also part of the Smithsonian Institution (the telescope is operated by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Mass.) That connection led to a new collaboration, described below, between Kim and Mickey Hart, the Grateful Dead, and Dead and Company, drummer and artist.

Westerlund 2
Credit: NASA/CXC/SAO & NASA/STScI

There is an inherent connection between music and space. There’s no rift between science and art, just a riff. They are two sides of the same coin, more alike than different.

On Saturday, June 22, Chandra’s 25th anniversary shone as part of the Smithsonian’s Cosmic Journey initiative, with events across SI's Solstice Saturday. During Solstice Saturday, SI museums on the Mall stay open late and host special programs and performances.

The event drew record-breaking audiences with many tens of thousands of people over the course of the day, braving the DC heat to enjoy a day and evening of astronomy. 
Chandra content was featured at multiple museums including Air & Space, Natural History, Arts & Industries, African American History & Culture, and Hirshhorn, for example. The installations included Chandra sonifications and large scaled image projects, trivia, handouts, 3D prints, and a documentary world premiere of "Listen to the Universe" from Chandra and NASA+.

Our guest blogger this week is Jessica Jacyno. Jacyno is an engineering student at Brown University from Sweetwater, Tennessee. She is passionate about the interplay between international policy and science.

As an engineering student, I am taught to take advantage of the laws of physics to accomplish humanity’s goals. Before that though I am a student of the cosmos, intent on staring up at the night sky to unravel the secrets of our origins. Until taking classes on astrophysics at university, my focus had always been on the results, not the tools used to achieve such results. Telescopes always seemed like complex black boxes that were out of my paygrade to understand. After all, if they were producing discoveries why did I care how they were found?

However, learning about these means of discovery is akin to learning about the history of the past to inform our present. Not only is the technology deeply intriguing (and not as unfathomable as you would think), but there is much to be learned from the way in which complex problems like space visualization are approached and solved. These approaches and solutions should serve to inform every type of problem solving across disciplines that requires critical thinking.

Before the first pitch of the Red Sox game on June 5th, over 3,000 local New England students were treated to a morning of STEM (“science, technology, engineering and math”) programs for the Red Sox NASA STEM Day. As local representatives of NASA in New England, the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO), including Chandra, had a huge presence and helped to celebrate the Chandra telescope’s 25th anniversary!