Collaboration Across Cultures Global Astronomy: Collaboration Across Cultures

Solution: Student Worksheet: Satellite Venn Diagram

The finished Venn diagram should look like this.

X-ray satellite Venn diagram solution

In the listing below, the correct answer is indicated in parentheses.

  1. launched in 1999 (Chandra)
  2. will require several rocket missions to launch the entire observatory (Con-X)
  3. consists of four individual satellites (Con-X)
  4. perform detailed studies of blackholes, supernovas, dark matter, origin, evolution, and destiny of the universe (Chandra, Astro-E, and Con-X)
  5. launched in 2000 (Astro-E)
  6. more quantitative data on abundance, velocity, temperature of gas (Con-X)
  7. superior ability to discriminate amongst different x-rays wavelengths (Con-X and Astro-E)
  8. flies more than 1/3 of the way to the moon (Chandra)
  9. an array of 32 individual microcalorimeters (Astro-E)
  10. exquisitely shaped for pairs of mirrors (Chandra)
  11. incorporates a three stage cooling system capable of operating the array at 60 mK for about two years (Astro-E)
  12. will be placed 1.5 million miles from Earth (Con-X)
  13. images are 25x sharper than previous x-ray telescopes (Chandra)
  14. designed to study the universe in x-rays (Chandra, Astro-E, and Con-X)
  15. detects broadest range of x-ray wavelengths(Con-X)
  16. focusing power equivalent to the ability to read a newspaper a half a mile away (Chandra)
  17. focus on smaller areas which will exclude picking up signals from external medium of hot gas (Con-X)
  18. X-ray telescopes are one way to observe extremely hot matter with temperature of millions of degrees (Chandra, Astro-E, and Con-X)
  19. data collected in hours instead days (Con-X)
  20. observatory must be placed high above Earth's surface because Earth's atmosphere absorbs X-rays (Chandra, Astro-E, and Con-X)
  21. deployment of observatory commanded by woman (Chandra)
  22. 10X higher spectral resolution for detecting emission from Iron (Astro-E)
  23. collecting areas 3 square meters which will detect x-ray sources 100x fainter (Con-X)
  24. a high resolution X-ray spectrometer based on a microcalorimeter array, four CCD X-ray cameras, and a hard X-ray telescope (Astro-E)
  25. detects and images X-ray sources billions of light years away (Chandra, Astro-E, and Con-X)

Thought Questions

Each satellite represents an improvement over previous satellites. Chandra provides better imaging capabilities than previous satellites, and Astro-E provides better spectral resolution. In addition, Con-X improves spectral resolution beyond that of Astro-E.

The satellites are complementary because Chandra provides superior images, while Astro-E and Con-X provide superior spectra.

All the satellites must be placed above the Earth's atmosphere in order to study the universe in x-rays.