A RARE alignment of Saturn’s enigmatic moon Titan with the Crab nebula has allowed astronomers to see X-rays flooding through the moon’s atmosphere. The observations, which hint that Titan’s atmosphere may extend much further out than expected, could help NASA mission controllers fine-tune their plans for the Cassini spacecraft, which is on its way to Saturn.
The Crab nebula, in the constellation Taurus, is the splattered remains of a star that people on Earth saw exploding in AD 1054. Today high-energy electrons still zing around the magnetised debris, generating X-rays and making the Crab one of the brightest sources of…
