Smithsonian Sparks

Celebrating 25 years of Chandra with amazing updated images that offer new ways of understanding our universe

July 22, 2024
Emily Frost
A collage of square images showing various brightly colored stars, nebulas and galaxies in space.

This image shows a collection of 25 new space images celebrating the Chandra X-ray Observatory's 25th anniversary. Starting from the upper left, and going across each row, the objects imaged are: Crab Nebula, Orion Nebula, The Eyes Galaxies, Cat's Paw Nebula, Milky Way's Galactic Center, M16, Bat Shadow, NGC 7469, Virgo Cluster, WR 124, G21.5-0.9, Centaurus A, Cassiopeia A, NGC 3532, NGC 6872, Hb 5, Abell 2125, NGC 3324, NGC 1365, MSH 15-52, Arp 220, Jupiter, NGC 1850, MACS J0035, SN 1987A. 

Credit: NASA/SAO/CXC.

Twenty-five years after the Chandra X-ray Observatory launched into space on July 23, 1999, it continues to capture information up to 86,500 miles (139,000 km) above us in space. Here on Earth we are celebrating with 25 never-before-seen views of a wide range of cosmic objects.

Every image uses information from Chandra, combining Chandra X-rays with information from space-based observatories and telescopes on the ground—such as the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE), Hubble Space Telescope, and many more. Learning new things never happens in a vacuum and without help from our friends. 

Here are 10 amazing images we picked for you. To view all 25, visit the Chandra website.

Crab Nebula

This composite image features the remnant of a supernova explosion, which resembles a neon purple mushroom at the heart of a colorful web of veins and filaments.
Image: X-rays from Chandra (blue-violet and white) and IXPE (purple); optical from Hubble (red, green, and blue).

Nebulas are giant clouds of dust and gas, often forming after a massive star explodes (what astronomers call a supernova). The Crab Nebula is the result of a bright supernova explosion witnessed by Chinese and other astronomers in 1054 CE. Chandra has observed the Crab Nebula many times since it was launched and helps us to see the rings around the pulsar and jets that blast particles into space.

Cat’s Paw Nebula

In this composite image of the Cat’s Paw nebula, brilliant red and purple clouds blanket a black sky packed with stars.
Image: X-rays from Chandra (purple); optical and H-alpha from ESO/MPG (red, green, and blue); infrared from Spitzer (red, green, and blue)

The Cat’s Paw is a nebula where stars are forming in the Milky Way galaxy about 5500 light-years from Earth in the constellation of Scorpius. The whole gas cloud is about 50 light-years across. In total, the Cat’s Paw Nebula could contain several tens of thousands of stars.

Pillars of Creation: M16

Here, tall columns of grey gas and dust emerge from the bottom edge of the image, stretching toward our upper right. Backed by dark orange and pink mist, the cloudy grey columns are surrounded by dozens of soft, glowing, dots in whites, reds, blues, yellows, and purples.
Image: X-rays from Chandra (red, green and blue); infrared image from Webb (red, green, and blue)

This region of star formation contains the Pillars of Creation, which was made famous by the Hubble Space Telescope. Chandra detects X-rays from young stars in the region, including one embedded in a pillar.

A Supernova Explosion: SN 1987A 

At the center of this composite image is a small object resembling a glowing pink Cheerio. Inside this ring is a pale, steel blue dot containing debris from the star that exploded.. The ring sits at the center of a ghostly figure 8, outlined in brick orange. This entire structure is surrounded by a packed field of stars, specks and dots in white, blue, and orange. A long, brick orange cloud hovers near the left edge of the image.
Image: X-rays from Chandra (purple); optical and infrared from Hubble (red, green, blue); infrared from Webb (red, green, and blue)

The supernova explosion that created this object was first observed on Earth in February 1987. Chandra sees X-rays produced by debris from the explosion.

Cassiopeia A Supernova Remnant

Here, rings of neon blue and brilliant white emit veins of polished gold. The rings and their arching veins encircle a place of relative calm at the center of the supernova remnant. This hole at the center of the circle, and the three-dimensionality conveyed by the rings and their arching veins, give this image of Cassiopeia A the look of a giant, crackling, electric blue donut.
Image: X-rays from Chandra (blue); infrared from Webb (orange, white, and blue)

The Cassiopeia A supernova remnant has been observed for more than 2 million seconds since the start of the Chandra mission in 1999.   

Colliding Galaxies: NGC 6872

A large spiral galaxy with two elongated arms that stretch toward our upper right and lower left. Near the white dot at the heart of the galaxy, a cloud of neon purple tints the arms, which appear steel blue at the tips. The purple represents hot gas detected by Chandra. Just to the upper left of NGC 6872 is a second spiral galaxy. Its spiraling arms are much smaller, but the bright white dot at its core is quite large, suggesting a supermassive black hole. Some of the steel blue matter and gas from NGC 6872’s lower arm appears to be floating toward the smaller galaxy, likely pulled toward the supermassive black hole.
Image: X-rays from Chandra (purple); optical from Hubble (red, green, and blue)

The barred spiral galaxy NGC 6872 is interacting with a smaller galaxy to the upper left. The smaller galaxy has likely stripped gas from NGC 6872 to feed the supermassive black hole in its center.

Lift Your Hand: MSH 15-52

In this composite image, a pulsar, a pulsar wind nebula, and a low energy X-ray cloud combine to create an uncanny scene of a skeletal hand preparing to grab a glowing ember. The hand reaches up from the bottom of the image, the ghostly blue flesh and white bones representing pulsar wind nebula X-rays observed by Chandra. A bright white spot in the wrist is the pulsar itself. Just beyond the hand’s fingertips, near our upper right, is a mottled yellow and orange shape that appears to glow from within. This is the low energy X-ray cloud observed by Chandra.
Image: X-rays from Chandra (gold and blue); infrared from the Dark Energy Camera KPNO Blanco 4.0m (red and blue) 

Pulsar wind nebulas like MSH 15-52 are clouds of energetic particles, producing X-rays, that are driven away from dead collapsed stars.

Seeing (Double) Stars: NGC 1850

This composite image features a double star cluster, a blue-tinted cloud, and several neon purple dots. This double cluster is part of the Large Magellanic Cloud, a companion galaxy to the Milky Way. The bright, golden stars in the larger cluster fill the upper center of the image. The other cluster is much smaller and coincides with one of the neon purple circles located slightly above and to the right of the image’s center. This and the other purple circles are X-ray sources detected with Chandra. To our left of the combined cluster is a vertical streak of blue-tinted cloud. Extending beyond the upper and lower edges of the image, this section of cloud resembles wafting smoke from a cigarette.
Image: X-rays from Chandra (magenta); optical from Hubble (red, yellow, green, cyan, blue); infrared from Spitzer (red) 

NGC 1850 is a bright, double star cluster that lies in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small neighbor galaxy to the Milky Way. It contains a black hole with a mass of about 11 Suns, and a companion star. No clear detection of X-rays with Chandra implies that the black hole is not quickly pulling material away from its companion.

Bat Shadow in Serpens Nebula

In this composite image, several pink and white stars gleam through murky cloud formations. These are young stars detected by Chandra. At our lower right, an opaque cloud resembling a veined slug rises out of a muddy brown mist. Blue and grey clouds with hints of brown stretch from our lower left, to our upper right. There, near the upper righthand corner, two long black triangles appear to burst from a central gleaming star. These triangles are in fact shadows from the young star, cast on distant blue and grey clouds. The eerie shape, reminiscent of the Batman call sign projected against a cloudy Gotham sky, has earned the phenomenon the nickname The Bat Shadow.
Image: X-rays from Chandra (purple); optical image from Hubble (red, green, and blue) 

A young star with a planet forming disk, too tiny to be seen even by the Hubble Space Telescope, is casting a shadow in the shape of a bat across a more distant cloud behind it. The shadow feature is approximately 200 times the diameter of our own Solar System.

We're Spiraling: NGC 1365

This composite image features a close look at the supermassive black hole at the heart of the spiral galaxy known as NGC 1365. The brilliant black hole glows white at the center of the image, its outer edges tinted bright blue. From this core, two thick ropey red arms spiral out. Continuing their spiral curves, the arms extend well beyond the edges of the frame. Dotting the image are a series of white spots with neon blue outer edges. These are stars paired with smaller black holes or neutron stars, observed by Chandra.
Image: X-rays from Chandra (blue); optical from VLT (yellow and blue); infrared from Webb (red, green, and blue)

This spiral galaxy, 56 million light-years away from Earth, contains a supermassive black hole and stars rapidly forming in its center. Chandra sees X-rays from gas near the massive black hole and from smaller black holes or neutron stars pulling material from companion stars.

Chandra is a NASA mission that was made possible through a collaboration between government, academic, and industry partnerships. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO), which is part of the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, controls science from the Chandra X-ray Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts and flight operations from Burlington, Massachusetts.