Chandra, also known as Soma, is the Hindu god of the Moon, and is associated with the night, plants and vegetation.
In the aerospace context, Chandra refers to the Chandra X-ray Observatory, which is a space telescope launched by NASA in 1999 to observe x-ray emissions from high energy objects such as galaxy clusters, black holes, and supernovae. The telescope is named after Indian-American astrophysicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, who made significant contributions to the understanding of the physical processes of stars and the structure of the universe.
Examples of scientific discoveries made by Chandra include:
- The detection of a giant black hole in the center of the Milky Way galaxy
- The discovery of a massive galaxy cluster located 9.6 billion light-years away
- The observation of supernovae and the study of the elements produced in these explosions
- The detection of x-ray emissions from galaxy clusters, which has helped scientists study the properties of hot gas in these clusters
- The study of the structure of galaxy clusters and the distribution of dark matter within them.