Moon_in_x-rays.gif (300 × 243 pixels, file size: 62 KB, MIME type: image/gif)
Summary
editAn image of the moon as seen in X-rays from X-ray fluorescence initiated by solar X-ray flux. Astronomy picture of the day caption: "This x-ray image of the Moon was made by the orbiting ROSAT (Röntgensatellit) Observatory on June 29, 1990. In this digital picture, pixel brightness corresponds to x-ray intensity. Consider the image in three parts: the bright hemisphere of the x-ray moon, the darker half of the moon, and the x-ray sky background. The bright lunar hemisphere shines in x-rays because it scatters x-rays emitted by the sun. The background sky has an x-ray glow in part due to the myriad of distant, powerful active galaxies, unresolved in the ROSAT picture but recently detected in Chandra Observatory x-ray images. The dark side of the Moon's disk shadows this X-ray background radiation coming from the deep space. But why isn't the dark half of the moon completely dark? New Chandra results also suggest that a few x-rays only seem to come from the shadowed lunar hemisphere. Instead, they originate in Earth's geocorona or extended atmosphere which surrounds the orbiting x-ray observatories." The measured lunar X-ray luminosity of ~ 1.2 x 1012 erg/s makes the Moon one of the weakest known non-terrestrial X-ray source. The scale on the picture says "16 arcmin".
Licensing
editThis work is copyrighted (or assumed to be copyrighted) and unlicensed. It does not fall into one of the blanket acceptable non-free content categories listed at Wikipedia:Non-free content § Images or Wikipedia:Non-free content § Audio clips, and it is not covered by a more specific non-free content license listed at Category:Wikipedia non-free file copyright templates. However, it is believed that the use of this work:
qualifies as fair use under United States copyright law. Any other uses of this image, on Wikipedia or elsewhere, may be copyright infringement. See Wikipedia:Non-free content and Wikipedia:Copyrights. | |||
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"Images from the X-ray sky taken with the ROSAT telescope.
All rights reserved © Max-Planck-Institut für extraterrestrische Physik The X-ray images of MPE are produced by the SASS/EXSAS software MPE, ESO-MIDAS. The ROSAT project is managed by the Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e.V. (DLR), Germany on behalf of the Bundesministerium für Bildung, Wissenschaft, Forschung und Technologie (BMBF)."
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current | 06:27, 6 September 2008 | 300 × 243 (62 KB) | Melesse (talk | contribs) | {{Non-free reduced|~~~~~}} |
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