July 9, 2018 - Slowpoke Pulsar
Slowpoke Pulsar Combined data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and ESA’s XMM-Newton helped discover a young pulsar in the remains of a supernova in a nearby galaxy. This is the first time a pulsar—a spinning, ultra-dense star—has been found in a supernova remnant in the Small Magellanic Cloud. In this composite image, X-ray data are colored blue and optical data from the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile are colored red and green. The pulsar, SXP 1062, is the bright white source in the bottom of the image, in the middle of the diffuse blue emission inside a red shell of a supernova remnant. SXP 1062 spins slowly for a pulsar, only once every 18 minutes. Spectacular formations of gas and dust of a nearby star-forming region appear on the top of the image.
Image credit: NASA/CXC/Univ. of Potsdam/L. Oskinova et al.
Weekly Calendar
July 9 - 15, 2018
Holidays - Sky Events - Space History
Monday 9
Venus 1.1° north of Regulus
1945: White Sands Missile Range opens
1979: Voyager 2 flies past Jupiter
Tuesday 10
Aldebaran 1.1° south of Moon
1962: Telstar 1 launched, allowing transatlantic transmission of TV signals
1992: Giotto spacecraft flies past comet Grigg-Skjellerup
Wednesday 11
Jupiter appears stationary
1962: NASA selects lunar orbit rendezvous method for lunar landings
1969: X-24A lifting body rolled out for first time
1979: Skylab reenters atmosphere
Thursday 12
Mercury at greatest elong (26° E)
Pluto at opposition
New Moon 10:48 PM ET
1966: First glide test of M2-F2 lifting body
2000: Zvezda Service Module launched to ISS
2001: STS-104 Atlantis launched
Friday 13
Moon at perigee
1995: STS-70 Discovery launched
Saturday 14
Mercury 2° south of Moon
1965: Mariner 4 completes first successful flyby of Mars
1967: Surveyor 4 launched
2015: New Horizons makes first ever Pluto flyby
Sunday 15
1943: Jocelyn Bell Burnell born
1975: Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (Apollo 18) launched, last Apollo mission
2004: Aura satellite launched
2009: STS-127 Endeavour launched
2012: Soyuz TMA-05M launched carrying ISS Expedition 32/33 crew