Illustration: NASA/CXC/M.Weiss

Observations with NASA's Chandra, Swift, and Rossi X-ray observatories, Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, and ESA's XMM-Newton have revealed that a slowly rotating neutron star with a comparatively very weak surface magnetic field is giving off bursts of X-rays and gamma rays. This discovery may indicate the presence of an internal magnetic field much more intense than the surface magnetic field, with implications for how the most powerful magnets in the cosmos evolve.

G327.1-1.1 is the aftermath of a massive star that exploded as a supernova in the Milky Way galaxy. A highly magnetic, rapidly spinning neutron star called a pulsar was left behind after the explosion and is producing a wind of relativistic particles, seen in X-rays by Chandra and XMM-Newton (blue) as well as in the radio data (red and yellow). This structure is called a pulsar wind nebula. The likely location of the spinning neutron star is shown in the labeled version. The large red circle shows radio emission from the blast wave, and the composite image also contains infrared data from the 2MASS survey (red, green, and blue) that show the stars in the field.

Janet DePonte Evans is the Software Development Manager for the Chandra X-ray Center Data System (CXCDS) group, which provides end-to-end scientific software for Chandra's mission operations. This includes software to manage the scientific proposals, mission planning software prior to an observation, and then the software to reduce and analyze the scientific data returned from the telescope. Janet's group also developed and maintains the Chandra data archive and interfaces that allow scientists to retrieve Chandra data for further study.

Belinda Wilkes is a senior astrophysicist at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory who specializes in the study of supermassive black holes in the centers of galaxies. She is also the Director for the Chandra X-ray Center.

How did I get interested in astronomy and science? I was always good at math, since primary school, and this broadened into being good at physics once in middle and high school. I became interested in astronomy during my “A level” physics course (last two years of high school in the UK). I am not sure what triggered it, perhaps reading New Scientist articles or studying Kepler's laws as part of the course. I also read Hoyle's "The Nature of the Universe" about continuous creation, and was fascinated. I then decided to include astronomy in my undergraduate courses and made university applications accordingly. Once there, I continued to love the application of physics to astronomy and continued on to a PhD in astronomy.

The composite image on the left shows X-ray and optical data for BP Piscium (BP Psc), a more evolved version of our Sun about 1,000 light years from Earth. Chandra X-ray Observatory data are colored in purple, and optical data from the 3-meter Shane telescope at Lick Observatory are shown in orange, green and blue. BP Psc is surrounded by a dusty and gaseous disk and has a pair of jets several light years long blasting out of the system. A close-up view is shown by the artist's impression on the right. For clarity a narrow jet is shown, but the actual jet is probably much wider, extending across the inner regions of the disk. Because of the dusty disk, the star's surface is obscured in optical and near-infrared light. Therefore, the Chandra observation is the first detection of this star in any wavelength.

Well this is typical of how things work out. My last blog post I started back on July 23, Chandra's 11th birthday, and it was about how calm and, well boring, the Sun has been. It took me a couple days to finish it and then a few more for it to get posted. In between me writing the blog about the "quiet sun" and it being posted, there were a bunch of headlines like "Solar Tsunami", "Quiet No More" and then, "Solar Blast Just Misses." So what happened?

Like I wrote earlier, the Sun really isn't my focus, but in fact, nothing has changed. The sunspot number for July was about 23, up from 17 in June, but well the below the 35 expected by even the weakest predictions of the solar cycle. From they perspective of the ham radio people, "Yeah! The Sun finally did something," and the people living way up north finally saw some nice aurora. But we really do expect things like this to be happening more often now that we are two and a half years into the new cycle.

This composite image shows the Rosette star formation region, located about 5,000 light years from Earth. Data from the Chandra X-ray Observatory are colored red and outlined by a white line. The X-rays reveal hundreds of young stars in the central cluster and fainter clusters on either side. Optical data from the Digitized Sky Survey and the Kitt Peak National Observatory (purple, orange, green and blue) show large areas of gas and dust, including giant pillars that remain behind after intense radiation from massive stars has eroded the more diffuse gas.

Nancy Adams-Wolk is an instrument operations scientist at the Chandra X-ray Center. Her job, among others, is to ensure that one of the telescope’s main instruments – the Advanced CCD Imaging Spectrometer (ACIS) -- is healthy and performing up to its full capacity.

This is a composite image of the northern part of the galaxy cluster Abell 1758, located about 3.2 billion light years from Earth, showing the effects of a collision between two smaller galaxy clusters. Chandra X-ray data (blue) reveals hot gas in the cluster and data from the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT) in India (pink) shows huge "halos" generated by ultra-relativistic particles and magnetic fields over vast scales. Optical data from the Digitized Sky Survey are colored gold.

Lisa Paton is the Information Technology (IT) Manager for the High-Energy Astrophysics Division of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA). This means she oversees the computer networks and systems that allow scientists and everyone who work on the Chandra X-ray Observatory and other projects to have the technical infrastructure and support that they need to do their jobs.

(Please read part 1 for an introduction to this series)