Supernova Remnant Video from NASA's Chandra Is Decades in Making | Hacker News Reader

Supernova Remnant Video from NASA's Chandra Is Decades in Making

nasa.gov

62 pointsdylan60416 comments

I worked for the Chandra Operations Control Center in Burlington MA for a while. The team was a fascinating collaboration between Northrop Grumman, The Smithsonian, NASA, and Harvard.

The telescope was launched into orbit in 1999 and has been a tremendous value to astrophysics. Although it is showing signs of it's age, and it is not as capable or cost effective to operate as the James Webb telescope; it still offers scientists much needed capacity and logistics capability that come with having two telescopes in orbit instead of just one.

One of the fascinating parts about the telescope is it's resiliance and the dedication of the staff who control it. For example, to maximize the usable lifespan of the anti-radiation shielding, and to prevent radiation damage to sensitive features, the position of the craft is constantly being planned and adjusted relative to the sun to balance radiation exposure and maximize observation time at various targets. Much like telling a small child "don't stare directly at the sun" as they take in as much information about their surroundings as possible.

Astronomical time lapses are fascinating and there should be more.

you are free to create your own as NASA observatories release their imagery free to the public as they were paid for with the public's money from taxes. the problem with creating timelapse videos would be if the platform viewed the same object at least annually to see the changes.

I have often thought about looking through archives but has not been easy for me (don' know how to) search though years of data for multiple views (years apart) of the same objects.

I have been wondering about binary star systems. I think some of them are human scale orbital periods.

I did this for SOHO to create timelapse footage of a specific filter. It was the first time I weaponized the use of cUrl (I guess officaly making me a hacker at the same time). The SOHO archive is very easy to parse as it has a very structured folder layout. I would hope that the other platform archives are similar.

Part of the reason you don't see them more is because commercial satellite mega-constellations (like Starlink) work against long exposure times by literally clouding and brightening our view of space. (1)

1) https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09759-5

Not really sure how this has anything to do with space based platforms like Chandra (which is x-ray) and Hubble which is well above Starlink. Also, Starlink is only a couple of years old to be problematic, but the ground based observatories have had clean skies for decades before.

This just really feels like someone trying to interject a pet peeve. Whether the peeve is valid or not, it's not the problem here.

It's relevant because ground based satellites add observational capacity. If a ground based telescope can't get a good view, that's when you queue up Chandra or James Webb (Hubble is not the same type of telescope, and it's workload is not interchangeable).

Astronomers have thousands of interesting things they would like to point their telescopes at. There are thousands of capable ground stations that could take the easy targets, and only 2 x-ray satellites which should be used only for the highest value targets where absolute clarity and resolution is required. But if you start obstructing those ground stations, the workload must be taken over by just 2 satellites.

Ground stations are valued because they help solve the capacity planning problem. More usable telescopes === more observation time. Having more ground stations frees up the 2 satellite telescopes for truly stunning shots.

> Chandra or James Webb (Hubble is not the same type of telescope

Chandra and James Webb are not the same type of telescope either. How is this relevant?

Hubble is actually the same altitude as Starlink, 340 mi. There have been proposals to boost Hubble to higher altitude so it doesn't reenter next decade.

But since Hubble doesn't look towards the Earth, it won't see as many as from Earth.

Astronomical objects that visibly change in human timescales are pretty rare. A naked-eye visible supernova remnant was one of the first clues that challenged the idea that the heavens were static, permanently set by God.

One of my favorite examples of astronomical timelapse is the motion of objects around SagA*. That I think might be the first example I saw. I'm not sure if they set out to make multiple observations specifically to map this motion or if it was something saw they could do from existing data. S

Wow, a sense of 3D perspective and motion from 17,000 light years away! (and of course the background stars at a much greater distance)

I love this. I want more of my tax dollars going here please. As Hank Green might say, we need to 'increase the awesome' more with stuff like this.

One of the main concerns of astronomers, and one of the benefits of Chandra and James Webb being in orbit aboard sattelites, is the prevelance of commercial sattelite constellations ruining the view of the cosmos. (1)

1) https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09759-5

reminder of our insignificance, time marches on

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