Friday 18 July 2025 9.00am EDT
During the last week Chandra completed the observing schedule as planned. A Chandra image release was issued on Jul 15, describing the discovery of an oddly-shaped galaxy (the "Infinity Galaxy") that may contain the first newborn supermassive black hole ever spotted, the result of investigation based on a combination of Chandra, JWST, and VLA data. If confirmed, this result implies that black holes can form remarkably quickly, not just soon after the Big Bang but throughout cosmic time. For details, see: https://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2025/infinity/ Chandra press and image releases were issued on Jul 16 describing a young (8 million years) extrasolar planet, TOI 1227b, about 330 light years from Earth. TOI 1227b is in a close orbit around its parent star, a red dwarf that is faint in visible light but a powerful X-ray emitter. As a result of this barrage of X-rays the planet is losing its atmosphere, and will shrink from its current size, comparable to that of Jupiter, to a far smaller core in about a billion years. For details, see: https://chandra.harvard.edu/press/25_releases/press_071625.html The schedule of targets for the next week is shown below and includes an observation of GRB250704B, which was accepted as a Director's Discretionary Time Target of Opportunity on Jul 16. |
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NGC4207 ACIS-S Jul 21 PSRJ1826-1256 ACIS-I SN2012au HRC-I SNRG15.9+0.2 ACIS-S NGC4207 ACIS-S Snake ACIS-I Jul 22 GRB250704B ACIS-S Radiation Belts Abell370 ACIS-I Jul 23 WASP-69 HRC-I XTEJ1855-026 ACIS-S/HETG NGVSJ124251.12+1137 ACIS-S XTEJ1855-026 ACIS-S/HETG Jul 24 SDSSJ0100+2802 ACIS-I WASP-69 HRC-I Abell3017 ACIS-S Radiation Belts Jul 25 PSZ2G358.21-87.49 ACIS-I Abell370 ACIS-I G29-38 HRC-I Jul 26 SNRG15.9+0.2 ACIS-S SDSSJ115640.43+15204 ACIS-S SNRG15.9+0.2 ACIS-S SDSSJ152043.83+1918 ACIS-S Jul 27 SNRG15.9+0.2 ACIS-S LHS475 HRC-I SDSSJ162753.48+4825 ACIS-S 1eRASSJ140339.9+093 ACIS-S Radiation Belts
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All spacecraft subsystems continued to support nominal operations.
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