Joint German-Russian mission will create the first map of the universe in X-rays
The space project called Spectrum-Roentgen-Gamma will be launched into space on June 21 in order to draw said map
A joint German-Russian mission called Spectrum-Roentgen-Gamma (SRG) will be launched into space on June 21 with the aim of drawing the first map of the Universe in high-energy “hard” X-rays. This method will open a ‘window’ into the cosmos for objects that are not yet visible to astrophysicists.
According to the main researcher of the mission, the astronomer of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, Peter Predehl, the SRG is the first telescope capable of creating a complete map of the sky in this part of the spectrum and, according to the forecasts, the mission, which will last four years, may show its first results in six months.
As the scientist points out to Nature, SRG will show the surface of a cosmic network of approximately 100,000 galaxy clusters by detecting the brightness of X-rays in its intergalactic plasma and in the plasma filaments that unite them.
The mission will also be able to show up to three million supermassive black holes, many of which will be new to science, and X-rays of up to 700,000 stars in the Milky Way.
The mission has two independent X-ray telescopes: one of German manufacture called eROSITA (Extended Roentgen Survey with a Set of Image Telescopes) and one of Russian manufacture called ART-XC (Roentgen Astronomical Telescope – X-ray Concentrator), which is the first instrument of its kind in the history of space research in this country as pointed out by the high energy astrophysicist at the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow and principal investigator at ART-XC, Mikhail Pavlinsky.
K. Tovar
Source: Europapress
