HEAPOW: IXO (2010 Sep 13)

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HEAPOW: IXO (2010 Sep 13)

Post by bystander » Wed Sep 15, 2010 2:08 am

Image HEAPOW: IXO (2010 Sep 13)
Astronomers use X-ray emission to peer through dust and gas to reveal the powerful flares produced by young stars, to study hot gas close to neutron stars, and to reveal the supermassive black holes which lurk within the centers of many young galaxies. Over the last decade increases in X-ray telescope technology has helped achieve extremely sharp X-ray images provided by the Chandra X-ray Observatory and very sensitive studies of faint objects using the XMM-Newton X-ray Observatory, among other breakthroughs. The next leap forward will occur with the launch of the International X-ray Observatory, or IXO. IXO, shown in the artist interpretation above, is designed to provide the capability to observe, for the first time, supermassive black holes at the earliest times in the history of the Universe and to study other high energy phenomena in unprecedented detail. IXO's images and spectra, obtained using a giant X-ray mirror, will uncover the history and evolution of visible and dark matter and energy and show how they interact during the formation of the cosmic web. IXO will also allow detailed studies of the centimeter thick atmospheres of neutron stars to show how matter reacts under the unimaginable pressures of strong gravity. IXO studies of spinning black holes will reveal how these objects form and grow and may point to the presence of "naked singularities". Detailed measurements of X-ray spectra will show astronomers when and how elements were created and how they were dispersed into the intergalactic medium to allow formation of planets like earth. Development of IXO, a joint effort of NASA, ESA, and JAXA, was recently highly recommended by the Astro2010: The Astronomy and Astrophysics Decadal Survey conducted for the National Academies of Science. Launch is planned for 2021.
International X-ray Observatory (IXO)
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PTB: Gigantic mirror for X-radiation in outer space

Post by bystander » Mon Sep 27, 2010 3:28 pm

Gigantic mirror for X-radiation in outer space
Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB) | 16 Sept 2010
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Planned X-ray telescope IXO (Credit: NASA)
It is to become the largest X-ray telescope ever: The International X-Ray Observatory (IXO), which has been planned in a cooperation between NASA, ESA and Japan's Aerospace Exploration Agency JAXA, will be launched into space in 2021 and provide the world with brand new information about black holes and, thus, about the origin of the universe. Its dimensions are gigantic: The surface of the mirror alone, which is to capture, for example, the cosmic X-radiation of black holes, will be 1300 m2 in size. It will consist of commercially available silicon wafers with pores of a few millimetres underneath. The quality of these "hidden" surfaces will be tested at the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB) with a monochromatic X-ray pencil beam. The new measuring device has been installed at PTB's synchrotron radiation laboratory at BESSY II in Berlin-Adlershof.

eROSITA will do the preliminary work. The German-Russian experiment under the auspices of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics will be launched into space in 2013. With the aid of a bundle of seven X-ray telescopes, eROSITA will search the whole sky for a specific kind of black hole: supermassive black holes which developed at the dawn of the universe - probably even before the development of the first stars. Scientists expect that - among other things - approximately three million new black holes will be found with this mission. This will, for the first time, allow a complete overview of the formation and development of supermassive black holes to be given. IXO will then be responsible for their systematic investigation. In addition, the new space telescope is to provide much new information about neutron stars and stellar black holes, the second type of black hole which develops when especially massive stars explode. Due to the fact that such a venture is extremely expensive, in 2008 the space agencies of the USA, of Europe and Japan decided to realize this joint project from then on instead of three individual solutions.

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