In the summer of 1999, NASA launched the third of its great observatories — the Chandra X-ray telescope. Like the Hubble Space telescope which preceded it, Chandra is designed to have an unprecedented ability to create images and spectra of astrophysical objects, except working with high energy X-rays instead of optical light. This means that Chandra views some of the universe’s most exotic and energetic phenomena: supernovae, neutron stars, black holes, jets traveling at nearly the speed of light emanating from near the center of clusters of galaxies. In this talk, we’ll take a tour of the discoveries made by the Chandra X-ray telescope, starting with studies of our own solar system, moving outward to nearby stars, to the center of our own Galaxy where a black hole 40 millions times the mass of our Sun lurks, to distant clusters of Galaxies where the most massive black holes, billions of times the mass of our Sun, reside.

No enrollment limit, no advance sign up.

PLEASE NOTE: following this talk, there will be a tour of the Chandra Space Telescope ACIS CCD Lab led by Dr. Steve Kissel (MIT Kavli Institute). In this tour, we will introduce the participant to the CCD detector development at MIT.

Max 15 people, advance sign-up required starting at 1:55 pm in 37-252
Prerequisites: Attendance of talks preceding the tour