NASA celebrates 20th anniversary of the Chandra X-ray Observatory

NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center and the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Alabama are celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Chandra X-ray Observatory -- the world's most powerful X-ray telescope.

Since its launch on July 23, 1999, Chandra has been NASA's flagship mission for X-ray astronomy. Astronomers around the world use Chandra's X-ray vision to explore cosmic mysteries -- from distant galaxies and an expanding universe to black holes, dark energy and supernovas.

New stars being born in the Large Magellanic Cloud

Nearly 200,000 light-years from Earth, the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way, floats in space, in a long and slow dance around our galaxy. Vast clouds of gas within it slowly collapse to form new stars. In turn, these light up the gas clouds in a riot of colors, visible in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope.