Chandra X-Ray Observatory

---For Seminar of ‘Touch Astronomy’
Topic: Chandra-related X-ray
Astronomy
By Bing Jiang
Introduction
History of Space Observatories
Chandra and products
Data Analysis
12/25/2004

Father of the X-Ray
Father of the X-Ray
• Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen
was the first to discover the
X-Ray. He first noted on
their existence on
November 8, 1895. He
noticed that while he was
working in his laboratory an
object on the other side of
the room began to glow.
• 1901, the first Nobel Prize in
Physics.
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Parts in the Spectrum
Parts in the Spectrum
• All parts of the electromagnetic spectrum are essentially
the same thing: electromagnetic radiation. The only
differences between them all are the frequency and
wavelengths of the different types of waves.
• X-Rays are just one
portion of the
electromagnetic spectrum.
Their wavelengths are
larger than those of
gamma rays, but smaller
then the wavelengths of
all other portions of the
electromagnetic spectrum.
3

A New Frontier
A New Frontier
• Perhaps the most
important aspect of the
X-Ray is its use in the
field of medicine.
• The first X-Ray photo of the
human body was taken of the
hand of a corpse by Wilhelm
Roentgen himself in his
laboratory in Vienna.
4

A Second Frontier
A Second Frontier
• The X-Ray has also
become a very useful
tool in the field of
astronomy.
• The first imaging X-Ray
telescope was made under the
direction of Riccardo Giacconi
by American Science and
Engineering in Cambridge, MA.
It was flown on a small sounding
rocket in 1965 and made crude
images of hot spots in the upper
atmosphere of the Sun.
5

X-ray sources
X-ray sources
• Accretion surrounding the compact sources
• Binary, BH
• Solar X-ray emission
• X-ray pulsar
• X-ray emission in GRB
• X-ray burst
• SNR, radio pulsar
• Galaxy
• Cluster
• AGN
• ……
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Observal difficulty on X-ary
Observal difficulty on X-ary
• X-Rays are mostly
blocked out of the
atmosphere.
• Because of this,
X-Ray observatories,
like the Chandra,
have to be placed
far into space to
collect accurate data.
This means the
ultra-precise mirrors
and detectors.
7

Telescopes
• The first imaging X-Ray
telescope was made under
the direction of Riccardo
Giacconi by American
Science and Engineering
in Cambridge, MA. It was
flown on a small sounding
rocket in 1965 and made
crude images of hot spots
in the upper atmosphere of
the Sun.
8

Telescopes
X-ray telescopes have a different design from optical
telescopes.
Because X-rays will reflect off mirrors only if they strike them
at grazing angles.
The mirrors have to be precisely shaped and aligned nearly
parallel to incoming X-rays. Thus they look more like barrels
than the familiar dish shape of optical telescopes.
9

Early Space X-ray Observatories
Early Space X-ray Observatories
• Uhuru (1970.10-1973.3) [2-20 keV] NASA
• Ariel-V (1973.10-1980.3) [0.3-40 keV] British-USA collaboration
• HEAO-1 (1977.8-1979.1) [0.2keV-10MeV] NASA
• Einstein(HEAO-2) (1978 11-1981 4) [0.2-20 keV] NASA
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Early Space X-ray Observatories
Early Space X-ray Observatories
• ROSAT (1990 1-1999 2) [0.1-2.5 keV] Germany/US/UK
• ASCA (1993.2-2001.3) [0.4-10 keV] Japan/USA
• BeppoSAX (1996.4-2002.4) [0.1-300 keV] Italian/Netherland
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Active Space X-ray Observatories
Active Space X-ray Observatories
• Chandra (1999.7-present)
• XMM-Newton (1999.10-present)
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Chandra

Chandra X-Ray Observatory
Chandra X-Ray Observatory
• The most important X-
Ray astronomy mission of
the current decade is
NASA’s Chandra X-Ray
Observatory, which was
launched on July 23, 1999.
It contains four sets off
nested mirrors.
• The third of NASA's
Great Observatories for
Space Astrophysics
Schematic of Grazing Incidence, X-Ray Mirror
15

Chandra X-Ray Observatory
Chandra X-Ray Observatory
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Chandra X-Ray Observatory
Chandra X-Ray Observatory
• The Chandra X-Ray
Observatory has opened an
important door for the field of
astronomy. The mirrors on the
Chandra have been polished to
a smoothness of a few atoms.
The mirrors are so strong that
they can see twice as far and
with five times greater detail
than any other X-Ray telescope.
High-resolusion X-ray telescope ~

SNR-Crab
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SNR-Cas A
SNR-Cas A
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X-Ray Emissions
X-Ray Emissions
• This composite was taken by
the Chandra Observatory.
When they looked at this radio
arc (in red), they observed an xray-emitting
cloud about 40
light-years wide (blue). These
x-ray-emissions are caused
when electrons from radio
filaments collide with a cloud
of cold gas with a mass millions
of times greater than our sun’s.
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X-ray view of the Milky Way
center
• This is a mosaic of 30
Chandra images. The
Milky Way is home to
more than a thousand
white dwarfs, neutron
stars and black holes.
If you possessed x-ray
vision, you would be
able to see this image
instead of the massive
cosmic dust clouds.
23

Black Holes
Black Holes
• Here is a composite of the
black hole XTE J118+480
taken by the Chandra
Observatory. It is seven
times more massive than
our sun, and takes material
from an orbiting solartype
star, and uses that
material to create bursts of
x-rays. Its x-ray spectrum
is shown from the upper
left corner to the lower
right.
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Jovian X-ray and Ultraviolet
Emissions
Here is a composite
image of Jupiter taken
by the Chandra
Observatory. The xray
pulses are shown
in pink, and the blue
features are ultraviolet
aurorae.
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Jupiter’s Great X-ray Spot
Jupiter’s Great X-ray Spot
• The X-ray spots shown on
the poles of Jupiter are
just as surprising to
astronomers today as the
Great Red Spot once was.
The false-color image is
shown on the right and
Jupiter’s x-ray emissions
can be seen on the left,
taken by the Chandra
Observatory.
26

Venus in X-ray
Venus in X-ray
• The picture shown on the
left is the first ever photo
taken of Venus in the xray
spectrum. The
traditional optical view of
Venus is shown on the
right, and can be seen
through a telescope.
Venus’ x-rays are
produced by fluorescence
rather than reflection.
Incoming solar x-rays
excite atoms in Venus’
atmosphere,
and these atoms emit a
fluorescence x-ray, creating the
glowing effect seen on the left.
27

Bibliography
• http://chandra.harvard.edu/about/top_ten.ht
ml
• http://cxc.harvard.edu/
• http://www.spacetoday.org/DeepSpace/Tele
scopes/GreatObservatories/Chandra/Chandr
aHistory.html
• Google!
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Data Processing
Data Processing
Data Analysis :
1. Data + Software
2. Calibration
3. Imaging Analysis
Spectrum Analysis
29

June,20,2003
§2. Data Processing
Data Processing Tools
CIAO
-- Chandra Interactive Analysis
XSPEC
of Observations (version 2.3)
-- a software for spectral analysis
Hello!
Jiang Bing
Astronomy department, NJU gingericejb@sohu.com30

• CIAO
Data Processing
Data Processing
• Chandra Interactive
Analysis of
Observations
• Radiation damage
• Quantum Efficiency
Losses
• Bad column
• Bad pixel
• Cosmic ray afterglow
• Standard pixel
randomization
• Potential background
events
31

June,20,2003
§2. Data Processing
Standard Data Processing (SDP)
Level 0
Level 1
Level 2
Level 3
raw data
start
Jiang Bing
Astronomy department, NJU gingericejb@sohu.com32

June,20,2003
Level 1 product
Data preparation
Level 2 product
Image Spectrum
§2. Data Processing
bad pixel
Apply an ACIS Gain Map
Apply the ACIS CTI Correction
Remove Pixel Randomization
Clean Defining ACIS Source Background & Background
GRADE Regions and STATUS filtering
Apply Three Extracting The Energy Good Extended Band Time Source Intervals Spectra (GTIs)
Remove Identify and Responses and the ACIS Remove Readout Point Streak Sources
Aspect Smoothing Apply the ACISABS
offset and correction Exposure model Correction to an ARF
Filtering Create Group a the
Light RGB-Color output spectra
CurveImage
Analyze and Fit spectra with XSPEC
Jiang Bing
Astronomy department, NJU gingericejb@sohu.com33

Data Processing
Data Processing
Spectral fitting:
Data + model + parameters
With the tools, it is very easy.
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Time variability
Time variability
37

http://chandra.harvard.edu/cards/holiday.html
Thanks for listening!
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Thanks for listening!
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