During the last week Chandra completed the observing schedule as planned.

A real-time procedure was executed on Jan 8 to perform a routine self-check of the Electrical Interface Assembly (EIA) Sequencer.

A Chandra press release was issued on Jan 6 describing Chandra observations of the M87 jet. M87 became famous in April 2019 when the Event Horizon Telescope released the first-ever direct image of its black hole. Chandra data show that the black hole in the galaxy M87 is propelling jet particles away from it faster than 99% the speed of light. The key new observation from Chandra is that the jet knot had faded by 70% between 2012 and 2017, ruling out the possibility that the apparent motion is due to a shock or wave effect. For details see: https://chandra.harvard.edu/press/20_releases/press_010620.html

A Chandra image release was issued on Jan 5 highlighting a 3D computer graphics visualization of the Crab Nebula based on visible, infrared, and X-ray data from the Chandra, Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes. The video dissects the intricate nested structure that makes up the stellar corpse, giving viewers a glimpse of the extreme and complex physical processes powering the nebula. For details see: https://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2020/crab3d/

The schedule of targets for the next week is shown below and includes an observation of AT2019pev, which is a follow-up to a Target of Opportunity which was accepted on Oct 17, and observations of Eta Carinae coordinated with HST.