X Ray Rainbows
Explanation:
A drop of water
or prism of
glass can spread out visible sunlight into
a
rainbow of colors.
In order of increasing energy, the well known spectrum of colors in
a rainbow
runs red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet.
X-ray
light too can be spread out into
a spectrum
ordered by energy ... but not by drops of water or glass.
Instead, the orbiting
Chandra
X-ray Observatory
uses a set of 540 finely ruled, gold gratings to spread out the
x-rays, recording the results with digital detectors.
The resulting x-ray spectrum reveals much about the compositions,
temperatures, and motions within
cosmic x-ray sources.
This false color
Chandra image shows
the x-ray spectrum of a
star system in
Ursa Major cataloged
as XTE J1118+480 and thought to consist of a sun-like star orbiting a
black hole.
Unlike the familiar appearance of a
prism's visible light rainbow,
the energies here are ordered
along radial lines with the highest energy x-rays near the center
and lowest energies near the upper left and lower right edges of the image.
The central spiky region itself is created by x-rays from the
source which are not spread out by the array of gratings.
Authors & editors:
Robert Nemiroff
(MTU) &
Jerry Bonnell
(USRA)
NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings,
and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris.
Specific
rights apply.
A service of:
LHEA at
NASA /
GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
