Chandra Release - September 16, 2003

Visual Description: The Moon

This two-panel image shows an optical image of a crescent Moon on our left, and the Chandra X-ray image of the same field of view at right.  The Moon is lit up only on the top and right side with the rest in darkness. The background of the optical image of the moon has a rough pockmarked texture. The optical image is in shades of grey, black and white, with blue dots appearing in a crescent shape for the X-ray image.  Chandra observations of the bright portion of the Moon detected X-rays from oxygen, magnesium, aluminum and silicon atoms. The X-rays are produced by fluorescence when solar X-rays bombard the Moon's surface.