Chandra Legacy Program

Rodolfo Montez Jr., for the Chandra Director's Office

In its nearly 25-year history, the Chandra X-ray Observatory has revolutionized X-ray astronomy. The sub-arcsecond angular resolution, combined with the ACIS and HRC instruments plus the LETG and HETG spectrometers, have enabled observations that have broken new ground in studies of objects and phenomena ranging from planets in our own Solar System to extremely distant black holes. Each year, the Observatory brings exciting results along with highly oversubscribed requests for new observations. With Chandra's legacy secure, it is nevertheless necessary to ask this question:


Are there major initiatives (science challenges) for which the capabilities of Chandra—alone or in combination with other cutting-edge facilities—are absolutely required to address fundamental questions about our current understanding of the components and evolution of the Universe and which would represent a crucial missed opportunity if they are not completed during Chandra’s lifetime?

It is with this question in mind that we have announced plans for a Chandra Legacy Program (CLP). The goal of the program is to provide the community with crucial results that only Chandra can produce and that will break new scientific ground and/or complement new and far-reaching observations in other wavelength regimes. Development of the CLP will be a multi-stage process that begins with the Announcement/Call for White Papers to select the topics for the CLP. A subsequent Call for Proposals will be used to select the actual targets for implementing the CLP. This Call for Proposals will be open to the entire community but limited to targets that fulfill the selected CLP topic(s).

For more information on the opportunity, please read the full program details at the Chandra Legacy Program website.

Important Dates