A few nice good images I found:

A nearby galaxy cluster about 65 million light years from Earth.

Image by Smithsonian Institution
Description: Chandra’s mosaic of images of the Fornax cluster reveals that the vast cloud of ten-million-degree Celsius gas in the core of the cluster has a swept-back cometary shape that extends for more than half a million light years. This geometry suggests that the hot gas cloud is moving through a larger, but less dense cloud of gas that creates an intergalactic headwind. The core motion, combined with optical observations of the motion of a group of galaxies falling toward the core, indicates that the cluster lies along a large, unseen, filamentary structure composed mostly of dark matter. Most galaxies, gas, and dark matter in the universe are thought to be concentrated in such filaments, and galaxy clusters are thought to form where the filaments intersect.

Creator/Photographer: Chandra X-ray Observatory

NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, which was launched and deployed by Space Shuttle Columbia on July 23, 1999, is the most sophisticated X-ray observatory built to date. The mirrors on Chandra are the largest, most precisely shaped and aligned, and smoothest mirrors ever constructed. Chandra is helping scientists better understand the hot, turbulent regions of space and answer fundamental questions about origin, evolution, and destiny of the Universe. The images Chandra makes are twenty-five times sharper than the best previous X-ray telescope. NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., manages the Chandra program for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory controls Chandra science and flight operations from the Chandra X-ray Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Medium: Chandra telescope x-ray

Date: 2004

Persistent URL: https://photography.si.edu/SearchImage.aspx?id=5345

Repository: Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory

Gift line: NASA/CXC/Columbia U./C.Scharf et

Accession number: fornax_xray

Hot Gas in Galactic Center: Chandra Turns Up the Heat in the Milky Way Center (A 130 light year region of the center of the Milky Way: Located about 26,000 light years from Earth, the region contains a supermassive black hole, hot gas, and thousands of X-

Image by Smithsonian Institution
Description: This X-ray image was produced by combining a dozen Chandra observations made of the central region of the Milky Way. The colors represent low (red), medium (green) and high (blue) energy X-rays. Chandra’s unique resolving power has allowed astronomers to identify thousands of point-like X-ray sources due to neutron stars, black holes, white dwarfs, foreground stars, and background galaxies. What remains is a diffuse X-ray glow extending from the upper left to the lower right, along the direction of the disk of the Galaxy. The Chandra data indicate that the diffuse glow is a mixture of 10-million-degree Celsius gas and 100-million-degree gas. Shock waves from supernova explosions are the most likely explanation for heating the 10-million degree gas, but how the 100-million-degree gas is heated is a mystery.

Creator/Photographer: Chandra X-ray Observatory

NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, which was launched and deployed by Space Shuttle Columbia on July 23, 1999, is the most sophisticated X-ray observatory built to date. The mirrors on Chandra are the largest, most precisely shaped and aligned, and smoothest mirrors ever constructed. Chandra is helping scientists better understand the hot, turbulent regions of space and answer fundamental questions about origin, evolution, and destiny of the Universe. The images Chandra makes are twenty-five times sharper than the best previous X-ray telescope. NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., manages the Chandra program for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory controls Chandra science and flight operations from the Chandra X-ray Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Medium: Chandra telescope x-ray

Date: 2004

Persistent URL: https://photography.si.edu/SearchImage.aspx?id=468

Repository: Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory

Collection: Milky Way Collection

Gift line: NASA/CXC/UCLA/MIT/M.Muno et al.

Accession number: Sgra_xray

A few nice good images I found:

M82: Images From Space Telescopes Produce Stunning View of Starburst Galaxy

Image by Smithsonian Institution
Description: Images from three of NASA’s Great Observatories were combined to create this spectacular, multiwavelength view of the starburst galaxy M82. Optical light from stars (yellow-green/Hubble Space Telescope) shows the disk of a modest-sized, apparently normal galaxy. Another Hubble observation designed to image 10,000 degree Celsius hydrogen gas (orange) reveals a startlingly different picture of matter blasting out of the galaxy. The Spitzer Space Telescope infrared image (red) shows that cool gas and dust are also being ejected. Chandra’s X-ray image (blue) reveals gas heated to millions of degrees by the violent outflow, which can be traced back to vigorous star formation in the central regions of the galaxy. The burst of star formation is thought to have been initiated by a close encounter with a large nearby galaxy, M81, about 100 million years ago.

Creator/Photographer: Chandra X-ray Observatory

NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, which was launched and deployed by Space Shuttle Columbia on July 23, 1999, is the most sophisticated X-ray observatory built to date. The mirrors on Chandra are the largest, most precisely shaped and aligned, and smoothest mirrors ever constructed. Chandra is helping scientists better understand the hot, turbulent regions of space and answer fundamental questions about origin, evolution, and destiny of the Universe. The images Chandra makes are twenty-five times sharper than the best previous X-ray telescope. NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., manages the Chandra program for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory controls Chandra science and flight operations from the Chandra X-ray Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Medium: Chandra telescope x-ray

Date: 2002

Persistent URL: https://photography.si.edu/SearchImage.aspx?id=2507

Repository: Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory

Collection: Normal Galaxies and Starburst Galaxies Collection

Gift line: X-ray: NASA/CXC/JHU/D.Strickland; Optical: NASA/ESA/STScI/AURA/The Hubble Heritage Team; IR: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of AZ/C. Engelbracht

Accession number: M82

Chandra Images Torrent of Star Formation: A starburst galaxy located about 12 million light years from Earth.

Image by Smithsonian Institution
Description: M82 is a galaxy where stars are forming at rates that are tens or even hundreds of times higher than in a normal galaxy. In this Chandra image (where low, medium, and high-energy X-rays are colored red, green, and blue respectively), M82 is seen nearly edge-on with its disk crossing from about 10 o’clock to about 4 o’clock. There are over a hundred point-like X-ray sources, some of which are likely black holes pulling matter from companion stars. Supernovas have produced the large bubbles of hot gas that extend for millions of light years to the upper right and lower left of the galactic disk.

Creator/Photographer: Chandra X-ray Observatory

NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, which was launched and deployed by Space Shuttle Columbia on July 23, 1999, is the most sophisticated X-ray observatory built to date. The mirrors on Chandra are the largest, most precisely shaped and aligned, and smoothest mirrors ever constructed. Chandra is helping scientists better understand the hot, turbulent regions of space and answer fundamental questions about origin, evolution, and destiny of the Universe. The images Chandra makes are twenty-five times sharper than the best previous X-ray telescope. NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., manages the Chandra program for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory controls Chandra science and flight operations from the Chandra X-ray Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Medium: Chandra telescope x-ray

Date: 2011

Persistent URL: chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2011/m82/

Repository: Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory

Gift line: NASA/CXC/Wesleyan/R.Kilgard et al.

Accession number: m82_471

Check out these good images:

M87: Giant Galaxy’s Violent Past Comes into Focus (A giant elliptical galaxy in the Virgo galaxy cluster about 50 million light years from Earth.)

Image by Smithsonian Institution
Description: Two Chandra observations of the giant elliptical galaxy M87 were combined to make this long-exposure image. A central jet is surrounded by nearby bright arcs and dark cavities in the multimillion degree Celsius atmosphere of M87. Much further out, at a distance of about fifty thousand light years from the galaxy’s center, faint rings can be seen and two spectacular plumes extend beyond the rings. These features, which can be related to repetitive outbursts from the vicinity of the central supermassive black hole, show that the central black hole has been affecting the entire galaxy for a hundred million years or more. (The faint horizontal streaks are instrumental artifacts that occur for bright sources.)

Creator/Photographer: Chandra X-ray Observatory

NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, which was launched and deployed by Space Shuttle Columbia on July 23, 1999, is the most sophisticated X-ray observatory built to date. The mirrors on Chandra are the largest, most precisely shaped and aligned, and smoothest mirrors ever constructed. Chandra is helping scientists better understand the hot, turbulent regions of space and answer fundamental questions about origin, evolution, and destiny of the Universe. The images Chandra makes are twenty-five times sharper than the best previous X-ray telescope. NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., manages the Chandra program for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory controls Chandra science and flight operations from the Chandra X-ray Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Medium: Chandra telescope x-ray

Date: 2004

Persistent URL: https://photography.si.edu/SearchImage.aspx?id=464

Repository: Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory

Collection: Quasars and Active Galaxies Collection

Gift line: NASA/CXC/W. Forman et al.

Accession number: m87_04

NGC 3079 (A spiral galaxy about 55 million light years from Earth.)

Image by Smithsonian Institution
Description: Chandra’s X-ray image (blue) combined with Hubble’s optical image (red and green) reveal towering filaments of warm (about ten thousand degrees Celsius) and hot (about ten million degrees Celsius) gas that blend to create the bright horseshoe-shaped feature near the center. This feature is thought to have been formed when a superwind of hot gas collided with cold gas in the galactic disk. The full extent of the superwind shows up as a fainter conical cloud of X-ray emission surrounding the filaments. Superwinds originate in the centers of galaxies either from activity generated by supermassive black holes, or by bursts of supernova activity.

Creator/Photographer: Chandra X-ray Observatory

NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, which was launched and deployed by Space Shuttle Columbia on July 23, 1999, is the most sophisticated X-ray observatory built to date. The mirrors on Chandra are the largest, most precisely shaped and aligned, and smoothest mirrors ever constructed. Chandra is helping scientists better understand the hot, turbulent regions of space and answer fundamental questions about origin, evolution, and destiny of the Universe. The images Chandra makes are twenty-five times sharper than the best previous X-ray telescope. NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., manages the Chandra program for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory controls Chandra science and flight operations from the Chandra X-ray Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Medium: Chandra telescope x-ray

Date: 2003

Persistent URL: https://photography.si.edu/SearchImage.aspx?id=5382

Repository: Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory

Gift line: NASA/CXC/STScI/U.North Carolina/G.Cecil

Accession number: ngc3079

A few nice good images I found:

A supernova remnant about 20,000 light years from Earth

Image by Smithsonian Institution
Description: This image, made by combining 150 hours of archived Chandra data, shows the remnant of a supernova explosion. The central bright cloud of high-energy electrons is surrounded by a distinctive shell of hot gas. The shell is due to a shock wave generated as the material ejected by the supernova plows into interstellar matter. Although many supernovas leave behind bright shells, others do not. This supernova remnant was long considered to be one without a shell until it was revealed by Chandra.

Creator/Photographer: Chandra X-ray Observatory

NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, which was launched and deployed by Space Shuttle Columbia on July 23, 1999, is the most sophisticated X-ray observatory built to date. The mirrors on Chandra are the largest, most precisely shaped and aligned, and smoothest mirrors ever constructed. Chandra is helping scientists better understand the hot, turbulent regions of space and answer fundamental questions about origin, evolution, and destiny of the Universe. The images Chandra makes are twenty-five times sharper than the best previous X-ray telescope. NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., manages the Chandra program for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory controls Chandra science and flight operations from the Chandra X-ray Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Medium: Chandra telescope x-ray

Date: 2005

Persistent URL: https://photography.si.edu/SearchImage.aspx?id=5347

Repository: Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory

Gift line: NASA/CXC/U.Manitoba/H.Matheson

Accession number: g21_xray

A spiral galaxy about 25 million light years from Earth.

Image by Smithsonian Institution
Description: Chandra’s observations of NGC 4631 reveal a giant halo of hot gas (shown in blue and purple) surrounding this spiral galaxy. The structure across the middle of the image and the extended faint filaments (shown in orange) represent data from the Hubble Space Telescope that reveal giant bursting bubbles created by merging clusters of massive stars. NGC 4631 closely resembles our Milky Way galaxy, and observations of NGC 4631 and similar galaxies provide astronomers with an important tool in the understanding our own galactic environment.

Creator/Photographer: Chandra X-ray Observatory

NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, which was launched and deployed by Space Shuttle Columbia on July 23, 1999, is the most sophisticated X-ray observatory built to date. The mirrors on Chandra are the largest, most precisely shaped and aligned, and smoothest mirrors ever constructed. Chandra is helping scientists better understand the hot, turbulent regions of space and answer fundamental questions about origin, evolution, and destiny of the Universe. The images Chandra makes are twenty-five times sharper than the best previous X-ray telescope. NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., manages the Chandra program for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory controls Chandra science and flight operations from the Chandra X-ray Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Medium: Chandra telescope x-ray

Date: 2001

Persistent URL: https://photography.si.edu/SearchImage.aspx?id=5360

Repository: Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory

Gift line: X-ray: NASA/CXC/UMass/D.Wang et al.

Accession number: ngc4631

A few nice good images I found:

X-ray Mosaic of Galactic Center: Chandra Takes In the Bright Lights, Big City of the Milky Way

Image by Smithsonian Institution
Description: This spectacular mosaic of Chandra images reveals hundreds of white dwarf stars, neutron stars, and black holes bathed in an incandescent fog of multimillion degree gas. A supermassive black hole residing at the center of our Galaxy is located inside the bright white patch near the middle of the mosaic. The colors indicate X-ray energy bands – red (low), green (medium), and blue (high). The mosaic gives a new perspective on how turbulent the Galactic Center is, and how the region affects the evolution of our Galaxy as a whole.

Creator/Photographer: Chandra X-ray Observatory

NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, which was launched and deployed by Space Shuttle Columbia on July 23, 1999, is the most sophisticated X-ray observatory built to date. The mirrors on Chandra are the largest, most precisely shaped and aligned, and smoothest mirrors ever constructed. Chandra is helping scientists better understand the hot, turbulent regions of space and answer fundamental questions about origin, evolution, and destiny of the Universe. The images Chandra makes are twenty-five times sharper than the best previous X-ray telescope. NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., manages the Chandra program for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory controls Chandra science and flight operations from the Chandra X-ray Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Medium: Chandra telescope x-ray

Date: 2001

Persistent URL: https://photography.si.edu/SearchImage.aspx?id=469

Repository: Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory

Collection: Normal Galaxies and Starburst Galaxies Collection

Gift line: NASA/UMass/D.Wang et al.

Accession number: Gcenter_xray_rgb

The Antennae: A pair of colliding galaxies about 60 million light years from Earth.

Image by Smithsonian Institution
Description: Chandra’s spectacular image of the Antennae shows the central regions of two merging galaxies. The bright fuzzy patches are superbubbles thousands of light years in diameter that were produced by the accumulated power of thousands of supernovas. The dozens of bright point-like sources are neutron stars or black holes pulling gas off nearby stars. The remaining glow of X-ray emission could be due to many faint X-ray sources, or to clouds of hot gas in the galaxies.

Creator/Photographer: Chandra X-ray Observatory

NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, which was launched and deployed by Space Shuttle Columbia on July 23, 1999, is the most sophisticated X-ray observatory built to date. The mirrors on Chandra are the largest, most precisely shaped and aligned, and smoothest mirrors ever constructed. Chandra is helping scientists better understand the hot, turbulent regions of space and answer fundamental questions about origin, evolution, and destiny of the Universe. The images Chandra makes are twenty-five times sharper than the best previous X-ray telescope. NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., manages the Chandra program for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory controls Chandra science and flight operations from the Chandra X-ray Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Medium: Chandra telescope x-ray

Date: 2004

Persistent URL: https://photography.si.edu/SearchImage.aspx?id=5376

Repository: Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory

Gift line: NASA/CXC/SAO/G. Fabbiano et al.

Accession number: antennae

Check out these good images:

A Galactic Spectacle: A pair of colliding galaxies about 62 million light years from Earth.

Image by Smithsonian Institution
Description: This composite image of the Antennae galaxies contains X-rays from Chandra (blue), optical data from Hubble (gold and brown), and infrared data from Spitzer (red). The X-ray image shows huge clouds of hot, interstellar gas that have been injected with rich deposits of elements from supernova explosions. This enriched gas, which includes elements such as oxygen, iron, magnesium and silicon, will be incorporated into new generations of stars and planets. The bright, point-like sources in the image are produced by material falling onto black holes and neutron stars that are remnants of the massive stars.

Creator/Photographer: Chandra X-ray Observatory

NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, which was launched and deployed by Space Shuttle Columbia on July 23, 1999, is the most sophisticated X-ray observatory built to date. The mirrors on Chandra are the largest, most precisely shaped and aligned, and smoothest mirrors ever constructed. Chandra is helping scientists better understand the hot, turbulent regions of space and answer fundamental questions about origin, evolution, and destiny of the Universe. The images Chandra makes are twenty-five times sharper than the best previous X-ray telescope. NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., manages the Chandra program for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory controls Chandra science and flight operations from the Chandra X-ray Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Medium: Chandra telescope x-ray

Date: 2010

Persistent URL: chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2010/antennae/

Repository: Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory

Gift line: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO/J.DePasquale; IR: NASA/JPL-Caltech; Optical: NASA/STScI

Accession number: antennae_459

A cluster of galaxies in the constellation Hydra.

Image by Smithsonian Institution
Description: The Chandra X-ray image of Hydra A, a galaxy cluster 840 million light years from Earth, shows strands of 35-40 million degree Celsius gas embedded in a large cloud of equally hot gas that is several million light years across. Also a bright white wedge of hot multimillion degree Celsius gas is seen pushing into the heart of the cluster. As the largest gravitationally bound objects in the universe, galaxy clusters provide crucial clues for understanding the origin and fate of the universe.

Creator/Photographer: Chandra X-ray Observatory

NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, which was launched and deployed by Space Shuttle Columbia on July 23, 1999, is the most sophisticated X-ray observatory built to date. The mirrors on Chandra are the largest, most precisely shaped and aligned, and smoothest mirrors ever constructed. Chandra is helping scientists better understand the hot, turbulent regions of space and answer fundamental questions about origin, evolution, and destiny of the Universe. The images Chandra makes are twenty-five times sharper than the best previous X-ray telescope. NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., manages the Chandra program for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory controls Chandra science and flight operations from the Chandra X-ray Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Medium: Chandra telescope x-ray

Date: 1999

Persistent URL: https://photography.si.edu/SearchImage.aspx?id=5348

Repository: Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory

Gift line: NASA/CXC/SAO

Accession number: hydraA

Check out these good images:

Rosette Nebula: Scientists Find X Rays from Stellar Winds That May Play Significant Role in Galactic Evolution (A star-forming region 5,000 light years away in the constellation Monoceros.)

Image by Smithsonian Institution
Description: This Chandra image shows a region of the Rosette Nebula. Massive young stars in the central regions of the Nebula produce strong winds that slam into cooler gas. These collisions create a cloud of 6 million degree Celsius gas – visible as diffuse emission in the right image – that contributes to heating the Nebula and interstellar gas. The red and blue sources indicate individual stars producing X-rays. The blue sources are newly formed stars where the low energy X-rays are absorbed by surrounding gas and dust.

Creator/Photographer: Chandra X-ray Observatory

NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, which was launched and deployed by Space Shuttle Columbia on July 23, 1999, is the most sophisticated X-ray observatory built to date. The mirrors on Chandra are the largest, most precisely shaped and aligned, and smoothest mirrors ever constructed. Chandra is helping scientists better understand the hot, turbulent regions of space and answer fundamental questions about origin, evolution, and destiny of the Universe. The images Chandra makes are twenty-five times sharper than the best previous X-ray telescope. NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., manages the Chandra program for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory controls Chandra science and flight operations from the Chandra X-ray Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Medium: Chandra telescope x-ray

Date: 2001

Persistent URL: https://photography.si.edu/SearchImage.aspx?id=5384

Repository: Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory

Gift line: NASA/Penn State/L.Townsley et al.

Accession number: rosette

The Crab Nebula: A Cosmic Icon – Spectacular death of a star in the constellation Taurus was observed on Earth as the supernova of 1054 A.D.

Image by Smithsonian Institution
Description: The Crab Nebula is an iconic object in space that has been studied intensely by both telescopes on the ground and those in space. This image of the Crab combines data from three of NASA’s Great Observatories. X-rays from Chandra (blue) have been combined with optical images from Hubble (red and yellow) as well as infrared data from Spitzer (purple). Together, these three telescopes provide a striking view of this famous cosmic source.

Creator/Photographer: Chandra X-ray Observatory

NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, which was launched and deployed by Space Shuttle Columbia on July 23, 1999, is the most sophisticated X-ray observatory built to date. The mirrors on Chandra are the largest, most precisely shaped and aligned, and smoothest mirrors ever constructed. Chandra is helping scientists better understand the hot, turbulent regions of space and answer fundamental questions about origin, evolution, and destiny of the Universe. The images Chandra makes are twenty-five times sharper than the best previous X-ray telescope. NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., manages the Chandra program for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory controls Chandra science and flight operations from the Chandra X-ray Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Medium: Chandra telescope x-ray

Date: 2009

Persistent URL: chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2009/crab/

Repository: Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory

Gift line: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO/F.Seward; Optical: NASA/ESA/ASU/J.Hester & A.Loll; Infrared: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. Minn./R.Gehrz

Accession number: crab_440