Chandra and Spitzer; Two of the Most Important Telescopes in Space

The Milky Way Show

The sky is amazing, and the starts often impress us. It is extremely fascinating to look at it during a summer night, when the weather conditions are perfect.

However, what we see is nothing in comparison to the images which the large telescopes are able to obtain. We see this great sea of starts, and that is it, but the celestial bodies are much more complex than the human eye can see. The majority of the sky and of the outer space is unknown to us, as there are many things which can not be seen even with the aid of the large observatories such as the Hubble Space Telescope. For example, the Hubble Telescope can not see the brown dwarves, which are very cold stars, because of the low temperatures. Because the temperature is low, the visible light can not be seen. Without the visible light, the telescope is unable to record the emissions of the brown dwarves on the electromagnetic spectrum. However, these stars can be examined, and the reason for that is the fact that they emit infrared radiation, which is a sort of invisible energy if you will. The infrared radiation is released in very long wavelengths. There are also energies which are released in short wavelengths, and they are called X-rays and gamma rays. There are certain telescopes which can record these types of energies, as they have various types of lenses. These telescopes which can record these types of energies are called Great Observatories. They were released by NASA at the end of the ‘90s and at the beginning of the ‘00s. They are called space-based telescopes, and each of them can record a different type of wavelength. The Hubble Telescope for example can record the visible light.

Giovanni Fazio, who is an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, said that NASA’s main goal was to have a telescope for each type of wavelength. He said that each of these telescopes can display the exact same location from the sky in a different manner, and thus, a star for example, can be analyzed from various points of view. The Hubble telescope was released in 1990, the Compton which can observe the gamma rays in 1991, the Chandra telescope which observes the X-rays in 1999, and the Sptizer telescope which observes the infrared rays was released in 2003. Compton was replaced by the Fermi telescope in 2008, as it crashed. The other two telescopes Spitzer and Chandra are still in outer space, and they still have the task of observing the various celestial bodies. The pictures which these telescopes take, are very impressive. The display of colors is incredible and they seem out of this world. They display lots of shapes and colors, as if they were taken from a dream. Hubble and many other telescopes circle our planet, but Spitzer is different, as it circles the Sun. This is extremely important because it is not affected by the heat emitted by the moon and by the sun. The atmosphere emitted by our planet does not affect Spitzer either, and thus the pictures it takes are not affected by the external conditions.

Prior to being deployed into space, the Spitzer telescope was cooled to minus 459 degrees Fahrenheit, which is very close to absolute zero, the coolest temperature that exists. This is another reason why the quality of the pictures taken by Spitzer is not affected. Spitzer was created to observe the cooler parts of the universe, as the infrared vision is able to detect these low temperatures. The temperature range which Spitzer observes is between minus 450 and plus 6,000 degrees. The stars usually have temperatures up to millions of degrees, so 6,000 degrees is not too hot, even if it seems hot. Spitzer was able to locate the brown dwarves, and to detect the radiations emitted by various exoplanets from the outer space. It is believed that the brown dwarves could be very important, as they might be able to host life, just like our planets can. For this reason, the scientists hope that the Spitzer telescope will be able to discover more such celestial bodies. Spitzer is also able to observe the events which take place in the outer galaxies, as it is able to see past the dust which is present in those galaxies. The researchers believe that thanks to the discoveries made by Spitzer they might be able to find out more things about the way in which our Universe was formed. The telescope can also view the Universe in its early stages. The scientists stated that since the telescope is able to look at the other galaxies as well, it is as if he looks at the Universe in the years when it was created. It is believed that the when our Universe was created, it looked like the distant galaxies.

Picture taken by Chandra

The Universe is constantly expanding, and the scientists believe that because of that, the more distant regions resemble the Universe when it was 2-billion years old. They said that because of the expansion, the visible light turns into infrared light, and Spitzer can detect and analyze that light. They believe that they will be able to find out more about the Universe in this manner, and they hope that in the future, Spitzer will be able to see the Universe as it was when it started to grow. Chandra moves in the same manner as the Hubble telescope, but the main difference between them is the fact that it flies 200 times higher. This difference is very important because even if these two telescopes are able to see the exact same regions, they see them from different points of view, and the obtained images are different. Chandra has a different purpose than Hubble has; as it was design to observe the violent events which take place in the outer space. When a star explodes, or when it releases flares, Chandra is there to record the events. Even if its task is different than the one of Spitzer, Chandra is just as important, because it can help the scientists figure out what happens inside of a star right before it explodes. They can also find out the effects of the explosion, and the state of the star after the explosion. Chandra also has the tasks of scanning for black holes, or neutron stars, the objects which have very unusual magnetic fields and gravitational pulls.

The scientists believe that they will be able to find out more about the dark energy and about the dark matter, these two being very common in the outer space, according to the scientists. The scientists are convinced that the dark energy and the dark matter exist in the outer space, but so far they could not find a way of detecting them. They hope that Chandra will be able to help them from this point of view, as they believe that in the following years, it will make a discovery which would prove their existence. Chandra was able to make other impressive discoveries as well. They discovered that Saturn’s rings emanate X-rays. There are also cases when the scientists use all of these three telescopes to focus on the same thing. In 2009 for example, Hubble, Spitzer and Chandra focused on the Milky Way, and each telescope presented something unique. Hubble presented the stars which are located in the Milky Way, Chandra presented the X-ray emission caused by a black hole, whereas Spitzer presented the dust clouds which were full of radiation. The unfortunate thing is the fact that they do not last forever. The telescopes need to be cool, and when they start to become hot, they malfunction. Spitzer is still able to function even if has started to lose its coolness. The scientists have stated that in a couple of years they will lose it, as it will no longer remain on its designed orbit.

The All-seeing eye

Spitzer was in space 8 years, and it has done its job successfully during this period. The scientists are sad because they will lose it, but they know that they will be able to replace it with a different telescope. The new telescope which will replace Spitzer is called Webb, and it will be much more powerful. Webb will be able to collect more than 50 percent much more light than Spitzer can, and because of this, the researchers believe that the discoveries which they will make in the future will be even more impressive and more important. Chandra will still be in space for at least ten years or so, as it does not show signs of malfunctioning.  They said that Chandra will be replaced by a new and improved telescope as well. Until that happens, they are taking as much pictures as they can, and they have stated that they will not stop, as they want to make as many discoveries as possible.