Imagine the Universe!

AXAF

AXAF

NASA's Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility, AXAF, is scheduled to be launched and deployed by the Space Shuttle in late 1998. This unique orbiting observatory will provide more detailed views than ever before of the universe as revealed through X-rays. AXAF is expected to yield data that will improve knowledge and understanding in some of the most fundamental areas of scientific investigation. Some of the specific X-ray sources which will be studied are among the most interesting and puzzling in the universe: neutron stars, black holes, debris from exploding stars, quasars, the centers of active galaxies, and hot gas in individual galaxies and galaxy clusters.

UPDATE: AXAF was renamed the Chandra X-ray Observatory and successfully launched aboard the Space Shuttle Columbia on 28 July 1999. Read more about it!

Learn about what lies at the heart of an advanced X-ray telescope!

Imagine the Universe is a service of the High Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center (HEASARC), Dr. Nicholas White (Director), within the Laboratory for High Energy Astrophysics at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

The Imagine Team
Project Leader: Dr. Jim Lochner
All material on this site has been created and updated between 1997-2004.

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