Chandra Archive 2013 in 60 Seconds

Narrator (April Hobart, CXC): Every year, October is designated as American Archive Month. While many people may think “archive” means only dusty books and letters, there are, in fact, many other types of important archives. This includes the use of archives for major telescopes and observatories like NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory.

The Chandra Data Archive plays a central role in the mission by enabling the astronomical community - as well as the general public - access to data collected by the observatory. The primary role of the CDA is to store and distribute data, which the CDA does with the help of powerful search engines. The archive is one of the legacies of the Chandra mission that will serve both the scientific community and the public for decades to come.

To celebrate and support American Archive Month, we have selected images from a group of eight objects in the Chandra archive to be released to the public for the first time. These images - including supernova remnants, stellar nurseries, and galaxies -- represent the observations of thousands of objects that are permanently available to the world thanks to Chandra's archive.