X-Ray Saturn

Explanation: Above, the ringed planet Saturn shines in x-rays . Otherwise beyond the range of human vision, the eerie x-ray view was created by overlaying a computer generated outline of the gas giant's disk and ring system on a false-color picture of smoothed, reconstructed x-ray data from the orbiting Chandra Observatory. The data represent the first clear detection of Saturn's disk at x-ray energies and held some surprises for researchers. For starters, the x-rays seem concentrated near the planet's equator rather than the poles, in marked contrast to observations of Jupiter , the only other gas giant seen at such high energies. And while Saturn's high energy emission is found to be consistent with the reflection of x-rays from the Sun , the intensity of the reflected x-rays was also found to be unusually strong. Outside the planet's disk, only a faint suggestion of x-rays from Saturn's magnificent ring system is visible at the left.