Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB)- 2010 March 16
Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics - eROSITAIt will be on board in 2012, when a Soyus-2 rocket carries an X-ray telescope into space to decode the nature of the universe's dark energy: an X-ray detector developed by the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (eROSITA). Its challenging task is to detect the weak X-rays from celestial bodies, without being disturbed by the visible and UV light from billions of stars.
The detector has to be very sensitive in the wavelength range from under one to about 50 nm, while at the same time being practically blind up to several hundreds of nanometers in the adjacent range. Scientists of the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB) have now succeeded in precisely characterising the spectral sensitivity in this very broad range for the first time in the world. This was only possible, because two electron storage rings are available to PTB, which together ensure that all the required spectral ranges are available in a high quality.
extended ROentgen Survey with an Imaging Telescope Array