German X-ray space telescope captures most complete map of black holes ever
By Tereza Pultarova - Senior Writer about 4 hours ago
The first science from the eROSITA space observatory is here.
Each bright spot in this image, the first all-sky image by eRosita, is black hole or a neutron star. (Image credit: Jeremy Sanders/Hermann Brunner/Andrea Merloni/Eugene Churazov/Marat Gilfanov/IKI/eSASS/MPE)
A German-built space telescope is creating the most detailed map of black holes and neutron stars across our universe, revealing more than 3 million newfound objects in less than two years.
The observatory, called eROSITA, launched in 2019 and is the first space-based X-ray telescope capable of imaging the entire sky. It is the main instrument aboard the Russian-German Spectrum-Roentgen-Gamma mission, which sits in a region known as Lagrange point 2, one of five stable points around the sun-Earth system, where the gravitational forces of the two bodies are in balance. From this vantage point, eROSITA has a clear view of the universe, which it photographs with its powerful X-ray detecting instruments.
Last month, the team behind eROSITA, led by scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Germany, released the first batch of data acquired by the instrument to the wider scientific community for exploration.
Imaging the whole sky in X-rays for the first time
The telescope has already led to interesting discoveries, including that of giant X-ray bubbles emanating from the center of the Milky Way. With its first public science release, eROSITA is poised to shed light on some long-standing cosmological mysteries including the distribution of the elusive dark energy in the universe, the mission's senior scientist Andrea Merloni told Space.com.
More:
https://www.space.com/erosita-maps-black-holes-universe
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