February 27, 1996
On your birthday, photons that left distant stars before humans walked the Earth finally completed their journey. You began yours.
X-ray Moon and X-ray Star
Birthday · February 27, 1996
A little universe, just for you
Your date.
Ready to give.
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APOD published February 27, 1996. Full image credits are on the original APOD entry below. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
An X-ray star winks out behind the Moon in these before and after views of a lunar occultation of the galactic X-ray source designated GX5-1. The false color images were made using data from the ROSAT orbiting observatory and show high energy X-rays in yellow (mostly from GX5-1), and lower energy X-rays in red (the Moon reflecting X-rays from the Sun). GX5-1 is a binary system consisting of a neutron star and a companion star in mutual orbit about the system's center of mass. The gas in the companion star's outer envelope falls toward the neutron star and accumulates in a disk around it. This disk material swirls deeper in to the neutron star's gravitational well, and is finally dumped onto its surface - in the process creating tremendous temperatures and generating the high energy X-rays.