During the last week Chandra completed the observing schedule as planned.

A Chandra press release was issued on Oct 24 as a NASA press release describing observations of a flare from the Milky Way's central black hole, Sgr A*, captured by NuSTAR, Chandra, and the W.M. Keck Observatory. Compared to giant black holes at the centers of other galaxies, Sgr A* is relatively quiet. Active black holes tend to gobble up stars and other fuel around them. Sgr A* is thought only to nibble or not eat at all, a process that is not fully understood. When black holes consume fuel -- whether a star, a gas cloud or, as recent Chandra observations have suggested, even an asteroid -- they erupt with extra energy. For details see: http://chandra.si.edu/press/12_releases/press_102412.html

A Chandra image release was issued on Oct 24 describing the identification of one of the lowest mass black holes ever observed in the middle of a galaxy. The black hole is located in the middle of the spiral galaxy NGC 4178. Data from Chandra, the Spitzer Space Telescope and the Very Large Array suggest that the black hole has a mass less than about 200,000 times that of the sun. For details see: http://chandra.si.edu/photo/2012/ngc4178/

Of note this week was the Einstein Fellows Symposium held in Cambridge MA on Oct 23-24. Presentations were made by the 30 current Fellows, covering a wide range of topics in observational and theoretical astrophysics research.

The schedule of targets for the next week is shown below and includes observations of IC 342 X-1 and M31* coordinated with the EVLA and an observation of Sgr A* coordinated with NuSTAR, Keck, VLT, SMA, CSO, CARMA, ALMA, EHT, HESS, and ATCA.