by A new space telescope due to launch in January 2024 will look at the cosmos with a revolutionary “lobster eye”, searching for X-ray bursts that originate from some of the most powerful phenomena in the universe, including feeding black holes, neutron stars colliding and exploding stars.
Named after none other than Albert EinsteinThe Einstein Probe is a joint effort between the European Space Agency (ESA), the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE) and the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).
This spacecraft will have next-generation X-ray instruments and will display an extremely wide field of view, allowing scientists to discover and study new events.
“The cosmos is our only laboratory for investigating the most energetic processes,” Erik Kuulkers, ESA’s Einstein Probe project scientist, said in a statement. “Missions like Einstein Probe are essential to advance our understanding of these processes and to learn more about the fundamentals of high-energy physics.”
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Observing the most violent events in the cosmos
X-rays are emitted by powerful, violent events such as supernovae, from which they are launched as the cores of dying stars collapse. They are directly attached to stellar material that is cut before it is consumed black holes also, as well as the collisions of ultra-dense, already dead stars known as neutron stars.
Because these violent cosmic events often last, however, the X-ray light they emit can be highly variable and unpredictable. This light can appear and disappear and brighten and dim very quickly, often appearing in the sky for a brief moment before disappearing for long periods – if they come back on at all, that is.
Seeing these X-rays is highly desirable for scientists because encoded within this high-energy light is information about the source that produced it. That means that by observing X-rays, the Einstein Probe could help scientists decode such events and at the same time enable astronomers to discover new X-ray sources.
Neutron star collisions emit both X-rays and gravitational waves — first predicted by Einstein in his 1915 theory of gravity general relativity — the Einstein Probe could help gravitational wave detectors find the source of these tiny vibrations space–time which traveled over millions, or even billions, of light years.
Ultimately this could help scientists observe these collisions before they collapse, revealing more about the dynamics of these collisions and the unique physics that occur around them. For example, heavy elements such as gold are known to form afterwards neutron star collisions.
Why ‘lobster eye’?
For its pioneering view of the universethe Einstein Probe is equipped with two revolutionary instruments – the Wide Field X-ray Telescope (WXT) and the Follow-up X-ray Telescope (FXT).
The WXT gets its expanded view of the cosmos from its unique modular design, which resembles a lobster’s eye. Lobster eyes, unlike those of other animals, have evolved to detect light by reflection rather than refraction, meaning that these crustaceans have an impressive 180 degree field of vision.
The so-called “Micro Pore Optics technology” of WXT allows the Einstein Probe to see 3,600 square degrees, which includes 10% of the entire celestial sphere above Earth, in a single image. This allows him to see almost the whole thing the night sky over World in 3 direct orbits around the planet, each of which would take the Einstein Probe only about 96 minutes to complete.
As soon as WXT sees an interesting or new X-ray emission event, the Einstein Probe’s FXT instrument will take over, focusing on the X-ray source and studying it in more detail.
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In addition, when WXT makes a significant X-ray detection, the Einstein probe will send a signal to ground-based observatories, allowing them to train other telescopes on the source and study it in a range of other light frequencies from low. -radio waves long wave energy to short wave high energy gamma rays.
This multi-wavelength data could be indispensable for detailed investigations of supernovaneutron star collisions and black hole feeding.
“Thanks to its innovative design, Einstein Probe can monitor the sky’s great mountains at a glance,” said Kuulkers. “In this way, we can discover many new sources and at the same time study the behavior of X-ray light coming from known celestial objects over long periods.”
