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Operations CXO Status Report

Friday 18 February 2025 9.00am EST

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

Chandra passed through the 15th, 16th, and 17th eclipses of the season on Feb 21, 24, and 27 respectively, with nominal power and thermal performance.

A Chandra press release was issued on Feb 25 describing a fast extragalactic X-ray transient outburst (with the peak lasting only around 10 seconds and a fainter afterglow with a duration of a few minutes). The event was located in older (2005) data from the Chandra archive; the original target was the remains of an exploded star in the Large Magellanic Cloud (a small galaxy in the neighborhood of our Milky Way, at about 160,000 light years from Earth). No source has been located at any wavelength at this position, whether before or after the burst. Although the nature of the burst remains unknown, possible explanations include the first X-ray burster (consisting of a neutron star and a normal companion star in a close orbit donating matter to the neutron star) discovered in the LMC. Another possibility is a rare, giant flare from a distant magnetar (a neutron star with an extremely strong magnetic field). For details see: https://chandra.si.edu/press/25_releases/press_022525.html

The schedule of targets for the next week is shown below, and includes an observation of MAXIJ1744-294, which was accepted as a Target of Oppoprtunity on Feb 3 and is coordinated with NuSTAR, XMM, and XRISM.



------------------------------------------
        NGC2287                HRC-I        Mar  2
        DQTauperiastron3       ACIS-I       Mar  3
        PSOJ170.8326+20.208    ACIS-S
        NGC2655                ACIS-S
        NGC2287                HRC-I
        DQTauperiastron3       ACIS-I
        PSOJ170.8326+20.208    ACIS-S
        NGC2655                ACIS-S
        DQTauperiastron3       ACIS-I
        PSOJ170.8326+20.208    ACIS-S
        70OPH                  HRC-I        Mar  4
        HE1353-1917            HRC-I
        IGRJ09331-4725         ACIS-I
        DQTauperiastron3       ACIS-I
        Radiation Belts
        NGC410                 ACIS-S
        3C264                  ACIS-S
        NGC410                 ACIS-S       Mar  5
        3C264                  ACIS-S
        NGC410                 ACIS-S
        3C264                  ACIS-S
        Abell2108              ACIS-I
        PSRJ1101-6101          ACIS-I       Mar  6
        NGC4261                HRC-I
        2MASXJ08370182-49543   ACIS-S
        Radiation Belts                     Mar  7
        NGC2566                ACIS-S
        SDSSJ102328.12+1611    ACIS-S
        HD16673                HRC-I
        NGC2566                ACIS-S       Mar  8
        Abell370               ACIS-I
        3C264                  ACIS-S
        Abell370               ACIS-I
        3C264                  ACIS-S
        Abell370               ACIS-I
        NGC2566                ACIS-S       Mar  9
        HE1353-1917            HRC-I
        MAXIJ1744-294          ACIS-S/HETG
        1eRASSJ121601.9-200    ACIS-S
        Radiation Belts

------------------------------------------

All spacecraft subsystems continued to support nominal operations.

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