Chandra Sketches: Chandra Explained

Narrator (Clara Arcand): NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory was launched into space aboard the space shuttle in 1999. Chandra goes around the Earth in an elliptical orbit. This orbit takes Chandra about a third of the way to the moon.

Chandra doesn't look at light that we can see with our eyes. It detects x-rays from the Universe.

What makes X-rays in space? Things that are very hot and energetic, like matter falling into a black hole, or the remains of a star that has exploded, or giant clouds of super-hot gas that surround galaxy clusters.

Astronomers use Chandra to help us better understand how the Universe - and the things in it - work.