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
XMM-Newton celebrates decade of discovery
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
Dec 09, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- ESA's XMM-Newton X-ray observatory is celebrating its 10th anniversary. During its decade of operation, this remarkable space observatory has supplied new data for every aspect of astronomy. ...
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Silicon technology offers extended X-ray vision of high-energy cosmos
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
Dec 21, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- As elements of the integrated circuits running our computers, phones and electronics, silicon wafers are everywhere. An ESA-led effort is establishing an out-of-this-world use for these ...
Britain's Royal Society puts rare scientific manuscripts online
Nov 30, 2009 |
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Historic manuscripts by Sir Isaac Newton, Benjamin Franklin and other ground-breaking scientists will be published online for the first time, Britain's Royal Society said Monday.
Eureqa, the robot scientist (w/ Video)
Technology / Computer Sciences
Dec 07, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- A new program, Eureqa, takes raw data and formulates scientific laws to suit, and it is available by free download to all scientists.
Their infinite wisdom
Dec 14, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Hotel guests come and go. But in the first decade of the 1900s, a pair of frequent Russian visitors to the Hotel Parisiana, near the Sorbonne on Paris' Left Bank, stood out vividly. The children ...
Physicists detect two candidate dark matter interactions, but say the data are not conclusive
Dec 18, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists have spent decades searching for the elusive material known as dark matter, which is believed to make up 25 percent of the universe. On Thursday, Dec. 17, a team of physicists including ...
Rethinking artificial intelligence: Researchers hope to produce 'co-processors' for the human mind
Technology / Computer Sciences
Dec 07, 2009 |
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The field of artificial-intelligence research (AI), founded more than 50 years ago, seems to many researchers to have spent much of that time wandering in the wilderness, swapping hugely ambitious goals for ...
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