There's an old trope in science fiction about someone suddenly getting X-ray vision and looking through a solid object. It turns out that with our Mark I eyeballs, this is physiologically impossible. However, astronomers have found a solution to this challenge, allowing us to study the universe with X-ray vision.
It's called X-ray astronomy and has been around for 60 years. It reveals some of the most dynamic and violent events and objects in the universe. These include bright quasars, supernovae**, thermals between galaxies, and red-hot young stars.
Recently, astronomers from the Erosita consortium of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics announced the latest X-ray data from the Erosta survey. It covers half of the X-ray sky and reveals information about 900,000 different X-ray sources.
That's more than all the discoveries detected in the decades-long history of X-ray astronomy, including those of Chandra and other orbital observatories.
Circular view of the sky of the Earth at X-rays.
Erosita is a soft X-ray imaging telescope on the Spectrum RG satellite. Starting on December 12, 2019, the first all-sky survey was conducted over a period of 7 months, called ERASS1.
In the most sensitive environments, the telescope detects 1700 million X-ray photons. This allows the camera to measure their energy and arrival time.
The astronomy team, led by lead researcher Andrea Merloni, has compiled a catalog of data published for the first time. They have also published more than 50 new scientific articles based on their findings**.
After completing the first survey, the instrument performed three more scans of the entire sky between June 2020 and February 2022. The great value of the X-ray data will be announced soon. The following ** details this mission.
Erosita's library of X-ray sources.
X-ray astronomy focuses on hot, high-energy objects and events in the universe. These will be the cores of galaxies (where supermassive black holes lurk), supernovae**, nascent stars, and other material that is heated to high temperatures.
This preliminary data ERASS1 dataset pinpoints about 710,000 supermassive black holes, 180,000 X-ray-emitting stars, and 120,000 galaxy clusters. It also covers a handful of other exotic ** such as X-ray binary stars, supernova remnants, pulsars, and other objects.
Andrea Merloni, lead researcher at Erosta and first author of the Erosta catalog**, said: "These numbers are shocking for X-ray astronomy. ”。We've detected more in 6 months than XMM Newton and Chandra have had in nearly 25 years. ”
The data first published by Erosita is a rich "multi-layered" observation of the sky at several X-ray energies. Each energy level tells the astronomer the objects and events that emit X-rays. Moreover, for each image and data, the Federation will provide more information.
Here is a list of the source category, sky position, energy, and the precise time when the photons arrived at the instrument.
Miriam Ramos Ceja, Head of Operations at Erosita added, "We have made great efforts to release high-quality data and software. ”。We hope that this will expand the base of scientists around the world to study high-energy data and help advance the frontiers of X-ray astronomy. ”
A cut showing details in an X-ray view of the Earth's sky.
Aim at a specific X-ray object.
The scientific objective of the Erosita is to use X-rays to detect the hot intergalactic medium of 50 to 100,000 clusters and groups of galaxies. It also observes the hot gas in the filaments between them. These filaments emit light in X-rays.
The instrument is also responsible for detecting accretion black holes hidden in galaxies. Finally, it studies the physical properties of the Milky Way's X-ray sources, including pre-main-sequence stars, supernova remnants, and X-ray binary stars.
At least one article was published with the new survey data** using X-ray data to constrain cosmological models using galaxy clusters. In a published **, we see a newly discovered filament of the substance.
It extends between a portion of the galaxy cluster Abel 3667 and nearby Abel 3651. This may help astronomers determine how much material is present in the so-called "warm intergalactic medium". It provides insight into the formation of large-scale structures in the universe, such as clusters of galaxies.
The nearby Virgo galaxy cluster also appeared in the ERASS1 survey and provided a way to study large-scale filamentous structures. In particular, astronomers want to understand the physical effects of the periphery of these massive clusters of galaxies.
A team of scientists used new survey data, along with other full-sky imagery, to explore the structure of the cluster's suburbs. This includes high-energy radiation around galaxies within galaxy clusters and galaxy clusters. They also studied what they called the 320 kilopascal-second long "X-ray extension" near the M49 galaxy.
Cropped image of X-ray showing details of the Virgo star cluster.
Erosita's past work and future.
Since its launch in June 2019, the EROSITA has made a huge leap forward in X-ray astronomy. It began operations in October of that year, providing high-resolution X-ray images of the universe. As it scanned the sky, it caught a glimpse of a file named SMSS J11444777-430859.3 changes in distant quasars.
These changes provide some clues to the development of quasar-centric black holes. It observed a change in the brightness of the quasar's center, indicating that the black hole had swallowed some material that had strayed into its event horizon. Other substances escape in the form of strong winds.
The instrument also detected a newly formed black hole in the early universe and tracked the presence of hot gas around our galaxy. The instrument first emitted light on October 22, 2019. Currently, it is in safe mode and a technician is assessing its health.