XMM-Newton
hideThe XMM-Newton (X-ray Multi-Mirror Mission - Newton) is an orbiting X-ray observatory, named in honor of Sir Isaac Newton.
Originally known as the High Throughput X-ray Spectroscopy Mission, it was launched by the European Space Agency from the Guiana Space Centre at Kourou on 10 December 1999 by an Ariane 5 rocket. It was placed in a very eccentric 48 hour elliptical orbit at 40°; at its apogee it is nearly 114,000 km from Earth, while the perigee is only 7,000 km.
The satellite weighs 3800 kg, is 10 m long and 16 m in span with its solar arrays deployed. It holds three X-ray telescopes, developed by Media Lario of Italy, each of which contains 58 Wolter-type concentric mirrors. The combined collecting area is 4,300 cm². The three European Photon Imaging Cameras (EPIC) are sensitive over the energy range 0.2 keV to 12 keV. Other instruments onboard are two reflection grating spectrometers which are sensitive below ~2 keV, and a 30 cm diameter Ritchey-Chretien optical/UV telescope.
The mission was proposed in 1984 and approved in 1985; a project team was formed in 1993 and development work began in 1996. The satellite was constructed and tested from March 1997 to September 1999. The original mission lifetime was two years, it has now been extended for further observations until at least 2010. These observations are managed and archived at the European Space Astronomy Centre (formerly known as VILSPA) at Villafranca, Spain. The information is also processed and archived at the XMM-Newton Survey Science Centre at the University of Leicester, England.
For more information about XMM-Newton, read the full article at
Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.
News tagged with xmm newton
Swift, XMM-Newton satellites tune into a middleweight black hole
Nov 10, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- While astronomers have studied lightweight and heavyweight black holes for decades, the evidence for black holes with intermediate masses has been much harder to come by. Now, astronomers ...
XMM-Newton uncovers a celestial Rosetta stone
Sep 03, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- ESA's XMM-Newton orbiting X-ray telescope has uncovered a celestial Rosetta stone: the first close-up of a white dwarf star, circling a companion star, that could explode into a particular ...
Cygnus X-1: Still a 'Star' After All Those Years
Aug 28, 2009 |
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Since its discovery 45 years ago, Cygnus X-1 has been one of the most intensively studied cosmic X-ray sources. About a decade after its discovery, Cygnus X-1 secured a place in the history of astronomy when ...
New class of black holes discovered
Jul 01, 2009 |
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A new class of black hole, more than 500 times the mass of the Sun, has been discovered by an international team of astronomers.
XMM-Newton takes astronomers to a black hole's edge
May 27, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Using new data from ESA's XMM-Newton spaceborne observatory, astronomers have probed closer than ever to a supermassive black hole lying deep at the core of a distant active galaxy.
World event hopes to lure 1 mln to astronomy
Apr 02, 2009 |
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At sunset on Thursday, astronomers around the world will be limbering up for a 100-hour marathon aimed at celebrating the night sky and nurturing the Galileos of tomorrow.
XMM-Newton measures speedy spin of rare celestial object
Jan 13, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- XMM-Newton has caught the fading glow of a tiny celestial object, revealing its rotation rate for the first time. The new information confirms this particular object as one of an extremely ...
