X-Ray Vision

On my ride home early tonight with my youngest daughter, I read this short article from Discover magazine -- it's a little summary of the events that lead to the spectacular x-ray images being produced by the Chandra X-ray Observatory. The magazine includes some stunning images, which can be found online at the Chandra photo album -- high resolution images are available. Noteworthy in the article was the story of Riccardo Giacconi, who, as a young physicist, tried to convince NASA to send a Geiger counter into space. NASA refused, but the Air Force bought the idea. Giacconi told them that they could test if the Moon gave off radiation. That first Geiger counter in space didn't record any radiation from the Moon, but it did detect a strong source of x-rays from Scorpius constellation. Sco X-1 as the source would come to be known, would later turn out to be a neutron-star binary about 1,000 light-years from Earth. Giacconi documented a concept for the Chandra telescope in the 1960s, but it would take 36-years before NASA would launch the telescope. In 2002, Giacconi won the Nobel prize for his work -- work that revealed just how powerful gravity is in the universe.