April 07, 2004

I missed it because American Idol was on

Entire article and pretty pictures here.

On January 5, 2003, Titan - Saturn's largest moon and the only moon in the solar system with a thick atmosphere - crossed in front of the Crab Nebula, a bright, extended X-ray source. Titan's transit enabled Chandra to image the one-arcsecond-diameter X-ray shadow cast by the moon (inset). This tiny shadow corresponds to the size of a dime as viewed from about two and a half miles.

This may have been the first transit of the Crab Nebula by Titan since the nebula was formed by a supernova that was observed to occur in the year 1054. The next similar conjunction will take place in the year 2267, so this was truly a once in a millennium event.

Posted by: Ted at 07:13 AM | category: Space Program
Comments (3) | Add Comment
Post contains 141 words, total size 1 kb.

1 The next similar conjunction will take place in the year 2267, so this was truly a once in a millennium event.

Gah. Who writes this stuff? Astronomer Barbie?

Posted by: Pixy Misa at April 07, 2004 02:07 PM (+S1Ft)

2 LOL I know, I had to back up and reread that too.

Posted by: Ted at April 07, 2004 02:13 PM (blNMI)

3 No, it was Astronomer Malibu Stacey; "Don't ask me, I'm just a girl. *gigglegiggle*"

Posted by: Tuning Spork at April 07, 2004 08:53 PM (Lizm3)

Hide Comments | Add Comment

Comments are disabled. Post is locked.
23kb generated in CPU 0.0104, elapsed 0.1573 seconds.
70 queries taking 0.151 seconds, 190 records returned.
Powered by Minx 1.1.6c-pink.