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Operations CXO Status Report

Friday 14 January 2011 9.00am EST

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

A Chandra press release was issued on Jan 10 describing observations of Henize 2-10, a dwarf starburst galaxy about 30 million light years from Earth with properties similar to those in the early Universe. The surprising discovery of a supermassive black hole in this small nearby galaxy has given astronomers a tantalizing look at how black holes and galaxies may have grown in the early history of the Universe. Finding a black hole a million times more massive than the Sun in a star-forming dwarf galaxy is a strong indication that supermassive black holes formed before the buildup of galaxies. For details see: http://chandra.harvard.edu/press/11_releases/press_011011.html

A Chandra press release was issued on Jan 11 describing the discovery and characterization of a developing cluster, named COSMOS-AzTEC3, the most distant known in the early universe. The telescopes used in this work included NASA's Spitzer, Chandra and Hubble space telescopes, and the ground-based W.M. Keck Observatory and Japan's Subaru Telescope. This ancient collection of galaxies presumably grew into a modern galaxy cluster similar to the massive ones seen today. For details see: http://chandra.harvard.edu/press/11_releases/press_011211dcluster.html

A Chandra press release was issued on Jan 12 describing observations of GRS 1915+105 (GRS 1915 for short), a binary system in the Milky Way galaxy containing a black hole about 14 times more massive than the Sun that is feeding off material from a companion star. Using data from Chandra and RXTE, researchers saw that it pulses in X-ray light every 50 seconds in a pattern similar to an electrocardiogram of a human heart. The X-ray pulses are generated by changes in the flow of material falling toward the black hole. For details see: http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2011/g1915/

A Chandra image release was issued on Jan 13 describing observations of the starburst galaxy M82. The new deep Chandra image reveals hundreds of point-like X-ray sources, some of which likely contain black holes. Additionally, supernova explosions have produced bubbles of hot gas that extend millions of light years away from the plane of the galaxy. For details see: http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2011/m82/

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         NGC235A                ACIS-S       Jan 17
         A2665                  ACIS-I
         3C456                  ACIS-S
         J225140.3+132713.4     ACIS-S
         Radiation Belts                     Jan 18
         RMCREFL9               ACIS-I
         B30710+439             ACIS-S
         3C234                  ACIS-S       Jan 19
         XBootesIRAGNField      ACIS-I
         SIX-3                  ACIS-I
         18Sco                  ACIS-S
         Radiation Belts                     Jan 20
         UM461                  ACIS-S       Jan 21
         A6633                  ACIS-S
         RXJ1131-1231           ACIS-S
         GZ_merger_AGN_8        ACIS-I       Jan 22
         SLJ0850.5+4512         ACIS-I
         XBootesIRAGNField      ACIS-I
         SDSSJ1659+2101         ACIS-S
         NGC6720                ACIS-S       Jan 23
         Radiation Belts
         XBootesIRAGNField      ACIS-I
         0942+355               ACIS-S       Jan 24

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All spacecraft subsystems continued to support nominal operations.

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