A new X-ray eye on the cosmos.To study some of the hottest regions in the universe, the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency has launched the coldest instrument ever flown. Chilled to six-hundredths of a degree above absolute zero, the X-ray Spectrometer-2 is one of six devices carried by a Japanese-NASA satellite now gearing up to study high-energy emissions from such sources as the hot gas expelled by supernovas, the energetic material Energetic materials are a class of materials with high amount of stored chemical energy that can be released.[1]Typical classes of energetic materials are e.g. explosives, pyrotechnic compositions, propellants (e.g. spiraling into black holes, and the warm gas among stars and between galaxies. Originally known as Astro-E2, the satellite is identical to a mission that burned up 5 years ago when a launch rocket malfunctioned (SN: 3/25/00,p. 206). After the new satellite's successful launch on July 10, the Japanese agency renamed the satellite Suzaku, the Japanese word for a bird symbolizing renewal in Chinese mythology Chinese mythology is a collection of cultural history, folktales, and religions that have been passed down in oral or written form. There are several aspects to Chinese mythology, including creation myths and legends and myths concerning the founding of Chinese culture and the . Suzaku records higher-energy X rays than two other missions already in orbit, NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory Chandra X-ray Observatory U.S. X-ray space telescope. It was named after astrophysicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar and was launched into orbit in 1999. Its mirror, with an aperture of 1.2 m (4 ft) and a focal length of 10 m (33 ft), produces unprecedented resolution. and the European Space Agency's XMM-New ton telescope. A cooler on Suzaku keeps the detector at temperatures low enough to sense the tiny amount of heat imparted by an individual X-ray photon--just a few thousandths of a degree kelvin kelvin, abbr. K, official name in the International System of Units (SI) for the degree of temperature as measured on the Kelvin temperature scale. A unit of measurement of temperature. . Thus, the spectrometer spectrometer Device for detecting and analyzing wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation, commonly used for molecular spectroscopy; more broadly, any of various instruments in which an emission (as of electromagnetic radiation or particles) is spread out according to some is 10 times as accurate as any similar instrument.--R.C. |
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