How about crescent stars? (Letters).In the photograph of X-ray jets and point sources in the galaxy Centaurus A Centaurus A (also known as NGC 5128) is a lenticular galaxy about 14 million light-years away in the constellation Centaurus. It is one of the closest radio galaxies to Earth, so its active galactic nucleus has been extensively studied by professional astronomers , shown in "Shocks jolt jet set galaxy, X rays reveal" (SN: 8/25/01, p. 118), many of the point sources seem to be regularly spaced along arcs. The pattern is reminiscent of an X-ray diffraction pattern diffraction pattern The interference pattern that results when a wave or a series of waves undergoes diffraction, as when passed through a diffraction grating or the lattices of a crystal. from a crystal (a microscopic microscopic /mi·cro·scop·ic/ (mi?kro-skop´ik) 1. of extremely small size; visible only by the aid of the microscope. 2. pertaining or relating to a microscope or to microscopy. event mirrored here on a cosmic scale!). This could be an optical illusion--or perhaps the result of some physical phenomenon such as spherical spher·i·cal adj. Having the shape of or approximating a sphere; globular. shock waves colliding or cosmic strings. Barton M. Bresnick Mansfield, Mass. |
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