CHANDRA VS. CHANDRA

Centaurus A
Centaurus A

NASA’s premier X-ray observatory was named the Chandra X-ray Observatory in honor of the late Indian-American Nobel laureate, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar. He was widely regarded as one of the foremost astrophysicists of the twentieth century. Early in his career he demonstrated that there is an upper limit (now called the Chandrasekhar limit) to the mass of…


DYING STAR, OR SERIOUS ELECTRICAL FAULT?

Rotten Egg nebula
Rotten Egg nebula

Comment on NASA News of October 24, 1999. “The object shown in this NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image is a remarkable example of a star going through death throes just as it dramatically transforms itself from a normal red giant star into a planetary nebula. This process happens so quickly that such objects are quite…


SHOCKS FROM ETA CARINA

Eta carina
Eta carina

Excerpt from Space Science News: “Just three years ago the Hubble Space Telescope provided a dazzling image of a star that was blowing off massive quantities of material in a blast that looked like a supernova yet, mysteriously, wasn’t one. Now the Chandra X-ray Observatory has looked at Eta Carina and showed details that are,…