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About
Registration
is required for this free, in-person event:
https://bit.ly/ChandraTalk
On
June 23, 2025, at 6:00 PM, Hamptons
Observatory
will present a free lecture, in-person at Rogers
Memorial Library
in Southampton, by Dr. Jonathan Schachter, a member of the original
Chandra creation team. In the talk, “The
Chandra X-ray Observatory: An Insider’s Perspective,” Dr.
Schachter will discuss Chandra’s history, its pivotal discoveries,
as well as touch on the history of X-ray astrophysics and its key
personalities. Details and registration info may be found on:
https://HamptonsObservatory.org
Note: This lecture will be recorded and later posted on Hamptons
Observatory’s YouTube channel.
NASA’s
Chandra X-ray Observatory, launched in 1999, was named after the
esteemed Nobel laureate and pioneer white dwarf theoretical
physicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar of U Chicago. It had only a
five-year expected lifetime, but Chandra is now in its 25th
year and is still making momentous discoveries. This telescope was
specially designed to take X-ray images and spectra from collapsed
compact objects with strong gravity (e.g., neutron stars, and black
holes, including at galaxy centers). It can also observe extremes of
temperature and pressure in planets, stars, supernova remnants,
galaxies, and galaxy clusters. Chandra has traced the separation of
dark matter from light matter in the collision of galaxies and has
contributed to studies of both dark matter and dark energy. As its
mission continues, Chandra will carry on the discovery of startling
new science about our high-energy Universe.
The
TRW Inc. engineering firm worked alongside Harvard, MIT, and Penn
State scientists to design and build Chandra. Key testing of the
X-ray optics was performed at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center.
Harvard and MIT then deployed the satellite and served as mission
control. Dr. Jonathan Schachter, the only Harvard astronomer on the
TRW software test team, joined the project in 1996; although he left
the team in 2000, he has continued to follow Chandra as it takes
observations in its elliptical orbit around the earth. Dr. Schachter
will discuss the development and history of Chandra, as well as touch
on the history of X-ray astrophysics and its key personalities. He
will also present some of Chandra’s pivotal discoveries, many of
which have resulted from collaborations with Hubble and its
successor, the James Webb Space Telescope.
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