General

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.

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

We keep an eye out for all things astronomical in the news - especially when the words "Chandra" or "X-ray" pop up. Over the weekend, we noticed a story about both of these things, but this time it had nothing to do with us! [First image of moon's Haworth crater] The result was from an Indian spacecraft in orbit around the Moon that sent back some X-ray data of the surface.

The Chandra Blog is now participating in the Carnival of Space "blog carnival". Check out the recent postings:
http://www.collectspace.com/carnivalofspace/

While we like the written word as much as the next person, we thought it would be good to mix things up. We recently got a new, small, handheld video camera (about the size of a cell phone). The plan is to use this to add simple videos to the Chandra blog and other places on the website. Because it's handheld and very sensitive, it's easy for the videos to appear shaky and the sound is not perfect. We'll work on this for the future.

There are some exciting, yet different, Chandra-related events happening at the American Astronomical Society (http://aas.org/) meeting in Long Beach, CA today. First, there was a press conference this morning to announce new results on Cassiopeia A that bring this supernova remnant "to life". One result shows how Cas A has changed from 2000 – just after Chandra’s launch – through until late 2007. This is the first time scientists have been able to watch as a supernova remnant changes like this over time.

It sounds like a good portion of the United States got walloped over the weekend with snow and ice and seemingly everything in between. (Yesterday was, after all, the winter solstice and the official start of the season, so what else should we have expected?) While the white stuff can be beautiful, it can also put a damper on holiday errands. For those of us who might be lagging behind on getting their holiday cards in the mail, we here at Chandra can help you out.