Astronomers provide a revolutionary X-ray image of the sky

The eRosita telescope reveals impressive X-ray data with a look into the depths of the universe. Shows the entire Western Galactic Hemisphere.

Garshing – Owns the eRosita consortium The first catalog (eRASS1) of its All-Sky Survey It is published with about 900,000 identified X-ray sources. In its first six months, eRosita has discovered more X-ray sources than ever before in the history of X-ray astronomy, accompanied by scientific publications on topics such as planetary habitability and the detection of large cosmic structures.

The entire half of the sky was examined with the eRosita telescope

Andrea Merloni, chief scientist at eRosita, confirms in a press release issued by Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics Why these numbers matter: “We have discovered more resources in six months than the two large main missions, XMM-Newton and Chandra, have discovered in about 25 years.”

Half the entire sky was scanned in sensitive energy bands, and the telescope detected an incredible record of more than 170 million X-ray photons. These data allow a look not only at the sources of the X-rays, but also at the energy they emit.

In all, the catalog contains about 710,000 supermassive black holes, 180,000 active stars in our galaxy, the Milky Way, 12,000 galaxy clusters, and a variety of other fascinating objects. To understand: A galaxy cluster, also called a cluster, contains several thousand galaxies. The Milky Way galaxy alone contains more than a hundred billion stars. The star closest to Earth is what we call the Sun.

EROSETA X-rays the universe: more than 1,000 galaxy superclusters

eRASS1 observations are not only a trove of data for astronomers, but also open new opportunities for the scientific community. almost 50 scientific publications They were submitted at the same time as the data release. This work spans a wide spectrum, from identifying new cosmic structures to discovering “quasi-periodic” black holes to investigating the effect of X-rays from stars on planetary atmospheres and water content.

The new findings about eRosita's skies are particularly impressive. An animation showing how the telescope viewed the X-ray sky. Color coding represents different energy ranges, highlighting different sources of X-rays.

Exploding stars, black holes, and strange galaxies: a new era in X-ray astronomy

the Issuing statements and publications It represents a turning point in X-ray astronomy. Miriam Ramos Ceja, eRosita Operations Team Leader: “We hope that this will allow more scientists around the world to work with high-energy data and thus expand the frontiers of X-ray astronomy.”

More than 250 scientists in 12 working groups participated in this project, and the scope of their findings is enormous. In addition to the catalog and scientific results, the consortium also published images of the X-ray sky at different energies and the software necessary for comprehensive analysis.

The eRosita team has also expanded the catalog with measurements from other telescopes at different wavelengths to provide a complete picture of the universe. Now it is in the hands of researchers around the world to examine published data and gain new insights into the universe. (Syrian Pound)