Advanced Telescope for High-ENergy Astrophysics (ATHENA)
ATHENA is an ESA large mission that is slated to launch in the early 2030s. The main science goals of ATHENA address the questions:
* How and why does ordinary matter assemble into the galaxies and galaxy clusters that we see today?
* How do black holes grow and influence their surroundings?
These will be accomplished thanks to a large X-ray mirror with a 5” point spread function that pivots to focus on onto one of two instruments: the X-ray Integral Field Unit (X-IFU) which is an X-ray calorimeter with ~ 2 eV spectral resolution and the Wide-Field Imager (WFI) which is a large field of view (40’ x 40’) active pixel sensor.
Organizations
Launch Date
November 2032
Class
Website
ATHENA is an ESA large mission that is slated to launch in the early 2030s. The main science goals of ATHENA address the questions:
* How and why does ordinary matter assemble into the galaxies and galaxy clusters that we see today?
* How do black holes grow and influence their surroundings?
These will be accomplished thanks to a large X-ray mirror with a 5” point spread function that pivots to focus on onto one of two instruments: the X-ray Integral Field Unit (X-IFU) which is an X-ray calorimeter with ~ 2 eV spectral resolution and the Wide-Field Imager (WFI) which is a large field of view (40’ x 40’) active pixel sensor.
Related Publications
2022.
"New Measurement Resolves Key Astrophysical Fe XVII Oscillator Strength Problem.",
Physical Review Letters,
129
(24):
245001
[10.1103/physrevlett.129.245001]
[Journal Article/Letter]
2022.
"X-ray spectra of the Fe-L complex. III. Systematic uncertainties in atomic data.",
Astronomy & Astrophysics,
664
A62
[10.1051/0004-6361/202039943]
[Journal Article/Letter]
2022.
"X-Ray Photoabsorption of Density-sensitive Metastable States in Ne vii, Fe xxii, and Fe xxiii.",
The Astrophysical Journal,
941
(2):
188
[10.3847/1538-4357/ac9c00]
[Journal Article/Letter]