GSFC: XMM-Newton Celebrates 20 Years in Space

bystander · Post by **bystander** » Mon Dec 16, 2019 2:24 am

XMM-Newton Celebrates 20 Years in Space
NASA | GSFC | XMM-Newton | 2019 Dec 10

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Two decades ago, on Dec. 10, 1999, an Ariane 5 rocket climbed into the morning sky from Kourou, French Guiana. It carried into orbit the X-ray Multi-Mirror Mission (XMM-Newton), the largest scientific spacecraft yet built by ESA (European Space Agency) and a pioneering satellite for studying the universe with different kinds of light. XMM-Newton has studied over half a million X-ray sources, including supernovae, star-shredding black holes and superdense neutron stars.

“When ESA launched XMM-Newton 20 years ago, it immediately became one of the key space telescopes that astronomers used to advance their understanding of the universe,” said Paul Hertz, astrophysics division director at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “ESA is to be congratulated for making XMM-Newton available to the international science community and enabling a mountain of scientific discoveries.”

NASA contributed resources for two of the mission’s key instruments. The agency also funds the Guest Observer Facility at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, which supports the use of XMM-Newton by the American scientific community. More than a third of the satellite’s observing time is awarded to U.S.-based astrophysicists. ...