During the last week Chandra completed the observing schedule as planned.

Of note this week, the selection of 24 new Fellows for the NASA Hubble Fellowship Program (NHFP) was announced. The program enables outstanding postdoctoral scientists to pursue independent research in any area of NASA Astrophysics. Each fellowship provides the awardee with up to three years of support. The Chandra X-ray Center at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts works in collaboration with the Space Telescope Science Institute, the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to oversee the NASA Hubble Fellowships.

Chandra press and image releases were issued on Mar 24 describing a study of supermassive black holes using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and other X-ray telescopes. Ten billion years ago, there was a period referred to as “cosmic noon,” when the growth of supermassive black holes (those with millions to billions of times the mass of the Sun) was at its peak across the entire history of the universe. The reasons for the slowdown of this growth have been a open question of long standing. The new study concludes that black holes are indeed consuming material less rapidly the later they are found after the big bang, probably because the amount of cold gas available for them to ingest has decreased since cosmic noon. For details, see https://chandra.si.edu/press/26_releases/press_032426.html

A Chandra image release was issued on Mar 25 with a combination of data from Chandra, XMM, and the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer showing the supernova remnant RCW 86, at about 8000 light years from Earth. The combination of these data reveal details of the expansion process of RCW 86. For details, see https://chandra.si.edu/photo/2026/rcw86/

The schedule of targets for the next week is shown below and includes an observation of SN2026dix, which was accepted as a Target of Opportunity on Mar 20, observations of of AT2026dbl, which is a follow-up to a Target of Opportunity accepted on Feb 20 and is coordinated with NuSTAR, and an observation of GS1354-64, which is a follow-up to a Target of Opportunity accepted on Jan 30 and is coordinated with NuSTAR, Gemini, ATCA, and NICER.