Officials from the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) will cooperate in building and operating a satellite called Astro-H.
The orbiting observatory will watch the heavens with X-ray eyes, the latest in a number of space telescopes that can view this part of the spectrum beyond that of visible light. X-rays are emitted by extremely hot events at temperatures ranging from several million to several hundred million degrees Celsius.
Watching them will allow space scientists to observe some of the most extreme phenomena in the Universe including supernova explosions, neutron stars, black holes and the centres of active galaxies.
It will also help them to probe the large-scale structure of the Universe, including clusters of galaxies, and discover how it has evolved over billions of years. It will also help show how matter behaves in extreme gravitational fields.
The deal to work together on this exciting mission was signed last month by Professor Alvaro Giménez Cañete, ESA Director of Science and Robotic Exploration, and Dr Junjiro Onoda, Director General of the Japanese Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS).
source : http://bit.ly/HtCrFi
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