Chandra Director's Office

11/03/2022

Chandra's Fall Newsletter is out! 🍂🛰️

Read about the state of the observatory, new features from the Chandra Source Catalog, black hole sonification, and much more!

SAO High Energy Astrophysics Division

09/07/2022

Are you an Einstein, a Hubble, or a Sagan?

Apply for the NASA Hubble Fellowship Program and find out!

The three year fellowship allows recent PhD recipients to pursue independent theoretical, observational, and/or instrumental research. We anticipate offering up to 24 NHFP Fellowships this year.

Applications are due Nov 3!

The Space Telescope Science Institute helps humanity explore the universe with advanced space telescopes and ever-growing data archives.

06/07/2022

We need your input on the NHFP Fellowship Program!

Attend an AAS Splinter Session and/or fill out a survey to address recommendations from the NASA review panel. Your input will help shape the future of this prestigious fellowship!

The NASA Hubble Fellowship Program (NHFP) awards 24 Hubble, Einstein, and Sagan independent postdoctoral fellowships annually. In the summer of 2021, the NASA Astrophysics Division conducted the first programmatic review of the NHFP, intended to increase the effectiveness of the program and bolster....

03/09/2022

A friendly reminder that the Chandra deadline is TOMORROW!

Proposals are due March 10 at 6PM (EST). Good luck!!

02/25/2022

CHANDRA HAS RETURNED TO SCIENCE OBSERVATIONS

On February 20, Chandra resumed a full schedule of science observations with the Advanced CCD Imaging Spectrometer (ACIS) instrument. Because of the current High Resolution Camera (HRC) anomaly, the team has switched to using the ACIS detector for monitoring the radiation environment for the spacecraft, a function normally provided by the HRC as well as ACIS. In addition, the High Energy Transmission Grating (HETG) will be put into the path of the X-rays prior to spacecraft entry into the Earth’s radiation zones as an extra precaution during these high radiation periods.

The Chandra science instrument and engineering teams continue to analyze the HRC anomaly. The cause of the anomaly is under investigation, as are potential approaches by which HRC might be enabled again.

NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has returned to science operations, as teams work to resolve a power supply problem with the High Resolution Camera (HRC). NASA suspended all observations Feb. 9 while scientists and engineers analyzed the situation.

02/16/2022

CHANDRA HRC ANOMALY

On Wednesday, 9 February 2022, Chandra telemetry showed the HRC to be in an anomalous state. Commands were sent to terminate science observations and power down the HRC. All other aspects of the spacecraft are performing nominally, and work is underway to resume science observations with ACIS by early next week.

The cause of the HRC anomaly is under investigation, as are potential approaches through which HRC observations might be enabled again.

The deadline for Chandra Cycle 24 proposals, including those for potential observations with the HRC, remains unchanged at 10 March 2022, at 6:00 PM EST.

02/15/2022

Try out the new Resource Cost calculator!

https://cxc.harvard.edu/toolkit/rccalc.jsp

A Resource Cost (RC) will be calculated for each non-TOO Chandra target. The RC quantifies the difficulty of scheduling observations and is one of the limiting factors on how many proposals can be approved to be observed within a cycle.

There is a cap on the total RC that will be accepted for each peer review cycle. It is therefore in the interest of the proposers to choose targets with the smallest possible RC.

Reminder: The Cycle 24 deadline is 10 March 2022 at 6pm (EST)

10.10.3 Monday, January 24, 2022 The Chandra X-Ray Center (CXC) is operated for NASA by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 USA.   Email: [email protected] Smithsonian Institution, Copyright © 1998-. All rights reserved.

01/21/2022

Announcing a Python-friendly introduction to Chandra Source Catalog (CSC) science!

This splinter session at HEAD 19 will demonstrate how to download millions of science-ready data products, classify X-ray sources (AGNs, stars, etcs) by cross-matching CSC with optical and infrared catalogs, and use the CSC data as input for machine learning algorithms of classification and regression. We will also present a demonstration of CSC source classification using supervised machine learning.

Time: March 14, 2022, 6pm (EDT)

If interested, please fill out this short form:

We would like to know whether you are planning to attend this session during the AAS HEAD 19 meeting. It will take place on Monday, March 14, at 6pm. Please let us know if you are potentially interested in attending this session, so that we can better plan the details. Expressing your interest does....

12/15/2021

Chandra's Cycle 24 Call for Proposals has been released!

The Call for Proposals, Proposers' Observatory Guide, proposal planning software, and more are posted on our proposer web page: http://cxc.cfa.harvard.edu/proposer/.

Proposals are due: Thursday, 10 March 2022 at 6PM EST

SAO High Energy Astrophysics Division

11/05/2021

The Chandra Source Catalog documentation pages now feature Jupyter notebook science threads!

These threads will show you how to access the catalog tables *and* data products such as light curves and spectra to perform some basic science tasks, all from within a single Python session.

The Chandra Source Catalog

11/03/2021

Due to a planned power outage this weekend, ALL Chandra pages will be unavailable from Friday (Oct 5) at 5:30PM - Saturday (Oct 6) at 6PM (EDT).

This includes:
-The entire CXC website
-DDT and TOO triggers
-HelpDesk
-Archive
-CSC

10/29/2021

How can Chandra address emerging/legacy science areas in the coming years?

Chandra will be reviewed as part of NASA's 2022 Senior Review process and we welcome your suggestions about how Chandra can remain a vital component of cutting edge science.