Athena: An X-ray Observatory Class Mission for the Next Decade
Abstract
Athena (Advanced Telescope for High Energy Astrophysics) is an ESA-led observatory class mission under study, which aims at making very significant progress towards a number of scientific goals of broad astrophysical interest. Athena has taken the role of IXO (a former joint mission concept of NASA, ESA and JAXA) in ESA as one of the three large-class mission contenders within Cosmic Vision 2015-2025. It has also inherited from IXO a "scientific roadmap” against which Athena's science requirements have been obtained. The science themes include large-scale structure in the Universe and the fate of baryons, co-evolution of galaxies and supermassive black holes, feedback, and studying matter under extreme conditions. Athena, being an observatory class mission, will also deliver first-rank scientific insight on many other astrophysical objects, including Jupiter's atmosphere, stellar evolution, X-ray binaries, Supernova remnants, the Galactic center, etc.
Athena will consist of two equal X-ray telescopes with an 11m focal length, one with a wide field CCD imager in the focal plane and the other one with an X-ray calorimeter with resolution 3 eV. Each telescope will have an effective area of around 0.6 m2 at 1 keV and 0.25 m2 at 6 keV. The angular resolution is required to be 10 arcsec, with a goal of 5 arcsec. The launch date is foreseen for late 2022 with an Ariane 5 onto an L2 halo orbit. From the programmatic point of view, Athena is considering contributions from both NASA and JAXA, which will very positively enhance its capabilities, especially in the spatially resolved high-resolution spectroscopy capability. Current studies will lead to a decision by ESA on which of the 3 mission concepts (Athena, a mission to Jupiter's moons and a gravitational wave observatory) enter the definition phase by early 2012.- Publication:
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AAS/High Energy Astrophysics Division #12
- Pub Date:
- September 2011
- Bibcode:
- 2011HEAD...12.3002B