New images revealing the invisible universe celebrate a mission astronomers are scrambling to save

A collection of 25 new images taken by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory celebrate the telescope’s 25th anniversary. Chandra, named after Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, was launched into space in 1999 and has since made nearly 25,000 observations of the universe. It uses X-ray light to study energetic events and hot objects such as exploded stars, black holes, galactic collisions, and exoplanets. However, the telescope’s future is uncertain due to budget cuts, potentially impacting astronomy research. Chandra has contributed significantly to understanding the physics of cosmic objects and has been one of NASA’s most productive astrophysics missions, with over 10,000 scientific papers written based on its data. Efforts to raise awareness and support for the telescope’s future, known as Save Chandra, have been initiated by the astronomy community.