Einstein Probe
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Einstein Probe
The Einstein Probe (EP) is an X-ray space telescope mission by Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in partnership with ESA and the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE) dedicated to time-domain high-energy astrophysics. The primary goals are "to discover high-energy transients and monitor variable objects". It will carry two instruments: the Wide-field X-ray Telescope (WXT) and the Follow-up X-ray Telescope (FXT). FXT has optics adopted from eROSITA, "the mirror module consists of 54 nested Wolter mirrors with a focal length of 1600 mm and an effective area of greater than 300 cm2 at 1.5 keV." WXT has a new optics design, called " lobster-eye", that has wider field of view. "Lobster-eye" optics was first tested by the Lobster Eye Imager for Astronomy (LEIA) mission, launched in 2022. The probe weights 1450 kg and is 3-by-3.4 metres. EP was launched on 9 January 2024, at 07:03 UTC by a Long March 2C rocket from the Xichang Satellite Launch Centre in China, an ...
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Lobster Eye Imager For Astronomy
Lobster Eye Imager for Astronomy (LEIA) (also known as EP-WXT-pathfinder) is a wide-field X-ray imaging space telescope built by Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). It was launched on July 27, 2022 onboard of SATech-01 satellite. It is designed for a lifetime of two years. Project conception and design LEIA has a sensor module giving it a field of view of 340 square degrees. It is a preliminary mission testing the sensor design for the Einstein Probe which has a 12 sensor module Wide-field X-ray Telescope for a 3600 square degree field of view. The sensor uses lobster-eye micropore optics; it is the first space telescope that uses such optics. In 2022 August and September, LEIA carried out a series of test observations for several days as part of its performance verification phase. A number of preselected sky regions and targets were observed, including the Galactic Center, the Magellanic Clouds, Sco X-1, Cas A, Cygnus Loop, and a few extragalactic sources. The observa ...
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Lobster Eye Optics
Lobster-eye optics is an X-ray optics design that mimic the structure of the lobster's eyes and has an ultra wide field of view. It was proposed in 1979, and first used in the Chinese technology demonstrator spacecraft Lobster Eye Imager for Astronomy, launched in 2022. Currently several space telescopes that use lobster-eye optics are under development or consideration. Description Lobster-eye optics mimic the structure of the lobster's eyes, that are made up of long, narrow cells that each reflect a tiny amount of light from a given direction. This allows the light from a wide viewing area to be focused into a single image. The optics is made of microchannel plates (or micropores) — thin, curved slabs of material dotted with tiny tubes across the surface. X-ray light can enter these tubes from multiple angles and is focused through grazing-incidence reflection that gives a wide field of view necessary for finding and imaging transient events that cannot be predicted in adva ...
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X-ray
X-rays (or rarely, ''X-radiation'') are a form of high-energy electromagnetic radiation. In many languages, it is referred to as Röntgen radiation, after the German scientist Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, who discovered it in 1895 and named it ''X-radiation'' to signify an unknown type of radiation.Novelline, Robert (1997). ''Squire's Fundamentals of Radiology''. Harvard University Press. 5th edition. . X-ray wavelengths are shorter than those of ultraviolet rays and longer than those of gamma rays. There is no universally accepted, strict definition of the bounds of the X-ray band. Roughly, X-rays have a wavelength ranging from 10  nanometers to 10  picometers, corresponding to frequencies in the range of 30  petahertz to 30  exahertz ( to ) and photon energies in the range of 100  eV to 100  keV, respectively. X-rays can penetrate many solid substances such as construction materials and living tissue, so X-ray radiography is widely used in medi ...
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Space Telescope
A space telescope or space observatory is a telescope in outer space used to observe astronomical objects. Suggested by Lyman Spitzer in 1946, the first operational telescopes were the American Orbiting Astronomical Observatory, OAO-2 launched in 1968, and the Soviet Orion 1 ultraviolet telescope aboard space station Salyut 1 in 1971. Space telescopes avoid the filtering and distortion (scintillation) of electromagnetic radiation which they observe, and avoid light pollution which ground-based observatories encounter. They are divided into two types: Satellites which map the entire sky ( astronomical survey), and satellites which focus on selected astronomical objects or parts of the sky and beyond. Space telescopes are distinct from Earth imaging satellites, which point toward Earth for satellite imaging, applied for weather analysis, espionage, and other types of information gathering. History Wilhelm Beer and Johann Heinrich Mädler in 1837 discussed the advan ...
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Chinese Academy Of Sciences
The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS); ), known by Academia Sinica in English until the 1980s, is the national academy of the People's Republic of China for natural sciences. It has historical origins in the Academia Sinica during the Republican era and was formerly also known by that name. Collectively known as the "Two Academies (两院)" along with the Chinese Academy of Engineering, it functions as the national scientific think tank and academic governing body, providing advisory and appraisal services on issues stemming from the national economy, social development, and science and technology progress. It is headquartered in Xicheng District, Beijing, with branch institutes all over mainland China. It has also created hundreds of commercial enterprises, Lenovo being one of the most famous. CAS is the world's largest research organization. It had 60,000 researchers in 2018 and 114 institutes in 2016, and has been consistently ranked among the top research organizati ...
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Max Planck Institute For Extraterrestrial Physics
The Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics is a Max Planck Institute, located in Garching, near Munich, Germany. In 1991 the Max Planck Institute for Physics and Astrophysics split up into the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, the Max Planck Institute for Physics and the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics. The Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics was founded as sub-institute in 1963. The scientific activities of the institute are mostly devoted to astrophysics with telescopes orbiting in space. A large amount of the resources are spent for studying black holes in the galaxy and in the remote universe. History The Max-Planck-Institute for extraterrestrial physics (MPE) was preceded by the department for extraterrestrial physics in the Max-Planck-Institute for physics and astrophysics. This department was established by Professor Reimar Lüst on October 23, 1961. A Max-Planck Senate resolution transformed this department into a sub-inst ...
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High-energy Astrophysics
High energy astronomy is the study of astronomical objects that release electromagnetic radiation of highly energetic wavelengths. It includes X-ray astronomy, gamma-ray astronomy, extreme UV astronomy, neutrino astronomy, and studies of cosmic rays. The physical study of these phenomena is referred to as high-energy astrophysics. Astronomical objects commonly studied in this field may include black holes, neutron stars, active galactic nuclei, supernovae, kilonovae, supernova remnants, and gamma ray bursts. Missions Some space and ground-based telescopes that have studied high energy astronomy include the following: * AGILE * AMS-02 * AUGER * CALET * Chandra * Fermi * HAWC * H.E.S.S. * IceCube * INTEGRAL * MAGIC * NuSTAR * Swift * TA * XMM-Newton * VERITAS Veritas is the name given to the Roman virtue of truthfulness, which was considered one of the main virtues any good Roman should possess. The Greek goddess of truth is Aletheia (Ancient Greek: ). The Germ ...
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EROSITA
eROSITA is an X-ray instrument built by the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE) in Germany. It is part of the Russian–German Spektr-RG space observatory, which also carries the Russian telescope ART-XC. It was launched by Roscosmos on 13 July 2019 from Baikonur, and deployed in a 6-month halo orbit around the second Lagrange point (L2). It began collecting data in October 2019. Due to the breakdown of institutional cooperation between Germany and Russia after the invasion of Ukraine, the instrument stopped collecting data on February 26, 2022. Overview eROSITA was originally designed by the ESA for the International Space Station, and it was concluded in 2005 that its accommodation on a dedicated free flyer would provide significantly improved scientific output. The eROSITA telescopes are based on the design of the ABRIXAS observatory launched in April 1999, whose battery was accidentally overcharged and destroyed three days after the mission started. ...
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Wolter Telescope
A Wolter telescope is a telescope for X-rays that only uses grazing incidence optics – mirrors that reflect X-rays at very shallow angles. Problems with conventional telescope designs Conventional telescope designs require reflection or refraction in a manner that does not work well for X-rays. Visible light optical systems use either lenses or mirrors aligned for nearly normal incidence – that is, the light waves travel nearly perpendicular to the reflecting or refracting surface. Conventional mirror telescopes work poorly with X-rays, since X-rays that strike mirror surfaces nearly perpendicularly are either transmitted or absorbed – not reflected. Lenses for visible light are made of transparent materials with an index of refraction substantially different from 1, but all known X-ray-transparent materials have index of refraction essentially the same as 1, so X-ray lenses are not practical. X-ray mirror telescope design X-ray mirrors can be built, but only if the angle f ...
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Coordinated Universal Time
Coordinated Universal Time or UTC is the primary time standard by which the world regulates clocks and time. It is within about one second of mean solar time (such as UT1) at 0° longitude (at the IERS Reference Meridian as the currently used prime meridian) and is not adjusted for daylight saving time. It is effectively a successor to Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). The coordination of time and frequency transmissions around the world began on 1 January 1960. UTC was first officially adopted as CCIR Recommendation 374, ''Standard-Frequency and Time-Signal Emissions'', in 1963, but the official abbreviation of UTC and the official English name of Coordinated Universal Time (along with the French equivalent) were not adopted until 1967. The system has been adjusted several times, including a brief period during which the time-coordination radio signals broadcast both UTC and "Stepped Atomic Time (SAT)" before a new UTC was adopted in 1970 and implemented in 1972. This change ...
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Long March 2C
The Long March 2C (LM-2C), also known as the Chang Zheng 2C (CZ-2C), is a Chinese orbital launch vehicle, part of the Long March 2 rocket family. Developed and manufactured by the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALT), the Long March 2C made its first launch on 9 September 1982. It is a two-stage launch vehicle with storable propellants, consisting of Nitrogen Tetroxide and Unsymmetrical Dimethylhydrazine. The launch vehicle was derived from the DF-5 ICBM. Several variants of this launch vehicle have been built, all using an optional third solid motor stage: * 2C/SD: Commercial satellite launcher with a multi-satellite smart dispenser allowing delivery of two satellites simultaneously * 2C/SM: Version for delivery of small satellites to high orbits * 2C/SMA: Improved version of the 2C/SM According to the website ''Gunter's Space Page'', in addition to the launches listed in the following table, there may have been six additional CZ-2C launches during 2014 and 2 ...
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Xichang Satellite Launch Centre
The Xichang Satellite Launch Center (XSLC), also known as the Xichang Space Center, is a spaceport of China. It is located in Zeyuan Town (), approximately northwest of Xichang, Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan. The facility became operational in 1984 and is used to launch numerous civil, scientific, and military payloads annually. It is notable as the site of Sino-European space cooperation, with the launch of the first of two Double Star scientific satellites in December 2003. Chinese officials have indicated interest in conducting additional international satellite launches from XSLC. In 1996, a fatal accident occurred when the rocket carrying the Intelsat 708 satellite failed on launch from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center. Also, a 2007 test of an anti-satellite missile was launched from the center. History China's first crewed space program In order to support the Chinese Project 714 crewed space program in the 1960s, the construction of a new space c ...
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