As a space telescope capable of really seeing the celestial gas and blasts that fill our universe, the Chandra Observatory, which started sending back results in August, would have knocked the socks off Galileo Galilei.
Were the first person who fully exploit telescopes to camp out in South America's French Guiana on Friday for what astronomers hope is the successful launch of another X-ray observatory, the European Space Agency's X-ray Multi-Mirror Satellite, he might lose more than his socks.
That's because the telescopes that Galileo pioneered nearly 400 years ago, not to mention what are now the world's most powerful visible-light telescopes, are effectively blind to X-ray "light" or radiation.
| |
| Telescopes that Galileo pioneered nearly 400 years ago, not to mentionwhat are now the world's most powerful visible-light telescopes, are blind to X-ray radiation. |
Earth's atmosphere blocks X-rays from telescopes on the planet's surface, and most telescopes in space beyond our atmosphere lack detectors for X-rays. |
For the first time in the 35-year history of X-ray telescopes, Chandraand XMM will hopefully return data that help scientists learn what most of the universe is made of and the violent explosions that create it. |
Earth's atmosphere blocks X-rays from telescopes on the planet's surface, and most telescopes in space beyond our atmosphere simply lack detectors for X-rays. X-rays would fry the flat mirrors and lenses in a conventional telescope.
On top of that, the $1.5 billion Chandra and the $689 million XMM, if it succeeds, are likely to answer astrophysical questions that Galileo and even contemporary scientists didn't know or don't even know yet to ask, as well as questions about the basic matter that comprises most of the universe.
In short, the two observatories could revolutionize cosmology to the same degree that Galileo revolutionized our conception of the solar system.
XMM has far reach
The XMM observatory will be able to see even further back in the universe's history than Chandra, although it will lack that telescope's crisp focus. Optical or visible light is only a narrow band in the range of light in the complete spectrum of electromagnetic radiation that ranges from microwaves to X-rays.
"Hotter events and more energetic events in the cosmos are better seen in X-ray," said Philippe Kletzkine, an engineer who helped put XMM together.
Next page: What about normal matter?
advertisement
advertisement
