Save The Chandra Telescope

Over the past year, whether you have a great interest in the cosmos or not, you may have heard of the space telescope, JWST, or the James Webb Space Telescope, named after James E. Webb, who was the administrator of NASA from 1961 to 1968 during the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs. This telescope has created images that have blown the minds of astrophysicists and space enthusiasts alike, while gathering data on the mysteries of the cosmos, including information on the age of the universe that created a whole drama known as the “Crisis in Cosmology”. This telescope utilizes visible red and infrared light to capture images and data that explore the inner workings of different systems, revealing their properties.

However, James Webb has gotten too much attention from the public and it has overshadowed a telescope that is just as fascinating and capable, as the Chandra telescope. This telescope isn’t as far from Earth as JWST, but even in orbit the photos and data it has collected are simply beautiful. Utilizing X-rays, Chandra doesn’t take photos of large star systems and black holes, but the energy from them. This is like taking a photo of an apple, but instead of seeing a red sphere, you see the chemical energy contained within the bonds of the apple. While this might not sound as appealing as the apple itself, the data that can be collected with this type of instrument is incredible, so incredible that there is a whole musical piece created from the collection of symphonies throughout our universe that Chandra has curated from years of operation, which you can find here.

But, as it usually does, politics has created a bit of a problem. NASA, the organization that created and maintains Chandra, has decided that maybe the use of their resources should move from the telescope to other projects. This means they would effectively prematurely shut down the telescope. While this isn’t their fault but more due to the financial stress NASA is facing (to see more information about these financial issues read more here), it is still a devastating reality we could be facing. With still 10 years of predicted life remaining, it would be wounding to the scientific community if this project was cut short just because it wasn’t a part of the U.S. military. With such an efficient and effective machine, throwing away a telescope right at the time of breakthrough discoveries and enticing theories is not in the best interest of scientists or a curious society of explorers.

Chandra is one of the four original telescopes, one of which was Hubble, but the difference between them is that Chandra has no future project assigned to continuing the instrument's legacy. The Fermi telescope replaced the Compton telescope, both utilize gamma rays, the Spitzer telescope was replaced by JWST, and both utilize infrared, the Hubble telescope will be replaced by the Roman telescope, both utilize visible and near-infrared light. But Chandra has no project that will replace it, so keeping it alive until a project is realized is vital for future discoveries involving X-rays. While the scientific community has proposed future projects that could upgrade the work done by Chandra, such as a next-generation X-ray Great Observatory called Lynx, it is no guarantee that these ideas will be considered or even acted on in the next 10 years. So what’s the reason for sharing all this information? Well, there is a chance that you can help.

The best way we as a community can save Chandra is by contacting our local government and pleading a convincing case for why Chandra should stick around. Place a call to a staffer during normal business hours. To find your local representative go to this website and type in your address. Explain that “The Chandra is healthy, efficient, and returning its best-of-mission science. That its greatest discoveries lie ahead!” or “Chandra is a keystone of multi-wavelength observations, providing enormous synergy with the James Webb Space Telescope and essentially all cutting-edge ground-and space-based telescopes for the next 5-10 years, vastly increasing our return-on-investment in these major facilities.” More scripts like these can be found at the “Save the Chandra” website. As high school students, we may find that telescopes like this shouldn’t concern us or can’t be helped, but this is not true. Information gathered from Chandra may change the way we or maybe our children view the cosmos and its many wonders. By contributing a small amount of time to your day, you are helping science stay in a period of incredible discoveries and exciting developments. Let this amazing telescope keep doing what it was born to do and help give this exceptional feat of science another day to explore the unknown.

References

Act Now | Save the Chandra X-ray Observatory. (2024, March 17). SaveChandra.org. Retrieved April 22, 2024, from https://www.savechandra.org/act

Arcand, K., Russo, M., & Santaguida, A. (n.d.). A Universe of Sound. Chandra X-ray Observatory. Retrieved April 22, 2024, from https://chandra.si.edu/sound/

“Chandra.” NASA Science, https://science.nasa.gov/mission/chandra/. Accessed 17 May 2024.

Smethurst, B. (2024, April 18). T Coronae Borealis is about to go nova! Here's why and how to spot it | Night Sky News April 2024. Youtube. Retrieved April 22, 2024, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlRZYPYdOUQ