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XMM-Newton, looking for space X-rays

In the next report we have to show you the largest scientific satellite ever built in Europe. The XMM is Newton, weighs 3,800 kilos and is 10 meters long. Its mission is to detect x-ray sources in space. This space observer has been in orbit for 10 years.

XMM-Newton is the largest space observatory ever launched by the European Space Agency. It is equipped with 170 cylindrical X-ray multi-mirrors, so it works like a three-eyed telescope.

Thanks to its X-ray collecting capabilities, the telescope has received a wealth of data over the past 10 years that have allowed researchers to make many discoveries in all fields of astronomy.

In a clear night, we can see thousands of celestial objects... near and far. Our own Milky Way is full of these objects. However, the XMM-Newton Telescope is able to show thousands of sources that mask the Earth's atmosphere and emit X-rays.

Norbert Schartel, ESA:
"Even if X-rays are full of energy and able to penetrate both our skin and our body, they cannot enter the atmosphere of a planet. There's too much gas between space and Earth. That is why the observatory must be outside the atmosphere, in space, and we must see if we can detect X-rays from there. "

X-rays are produced in extreme situations and often as a result of dramatic events in the sky, such as black holes. It is precisely in the study of these very special environments that the telescope stands out... Also in the study of black holes in the center of the Milky Way. X-rays can show the evolution of massive galaxies, as well as the evolution of the largest structures in space, such as galaxy clusters.

In this cluster, for example, you can see the central galaxy surrounded by a cloud of hot gas X-rays. It is a halo of three million light-years in diameter formed by dark matter. Here, the temperature can reach 50 million degrees. The XMM-Newton Telescope has been a great help in defining theories about this mysterious matter. According to these theories, dark matter exceeds ordinary matter by a ratio of five to one.

Norbert Schartel, ESA: "Galaxy
clusters contain hundreds or thousands of galaxies. If you look at it in the normal way, you don’t see much; but with X-ray detectors, the sky fountains look brighter. We have an enormous potential of dark matter, which is 80% of the energy of these galaxy clusters."

Although it has already spent 10 years in space, the mission of the XMM-Newton telescope has been extended until 2012, but from now on, Herschel will collaborate with the infrared observatory to solve the mysteries of star formation. In fact, astrophysicists have detected star farms, where they have observed that the emission of X-rays alters the chemistry and structure and stimulates the accretion process.

The ESA mission has also investigated the heavy chemical elements that scatter stars at the end of their lives, when they explode as supernovae. In the image, this supernova, which is shown surrounded by a circle, was detected in the spiral galaxy M100; the image was taken with the optical monitor of the telescope. The X-ray camera of the same telescope has also examined the orange spot. If we compare the data taken by one of the telescopes that pioneered XMM-Newton, Rosat, a few years earlier, we can see that the supernova has not slowed down as much as expected.

XMM-Newton and Chandra, NASA’s counterpart mission, have also detected traces of the oldest supernova ever recorded, called SN 185, which was observed by Chinese astronomers 2,000 years ago.

Looking more closely, it should be noted that the telescope has contributed significantly to a better understanding of the solar system. For example, it has shown the effect of the interaction between the solar wind and the Jupiter magnetosphere. On the other hand, it has been discovered that the atmosphere of Mars is much larger than previously thought, and it has been verified that ice comets emit X-rays.

A few months ago, this space observatory has completed its first decade and could still complete another, as the number of requests for astronomers to use the telescope is seven times greater than the time available to observe it.