[ASA] Successful commissioning and first light for eROSITA!

[Matt Owers]

Dear ASA members,



I am delighted to inform you of the successful commissioning and First Light of the eROSITA X-ray telescope onboard the Russian-German "Spectrum-Roentgen-Gamma" (Spektr-RG) satellite (see images and press release here: https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/fxn_C3Q8Z2FEkqjMCgMgBk?domain=mpe.mpg.de). eROSITA will now move into its Calibration and Performance Verification phase (CalPV), before undertaking a 4-year all-sky survey at X-ray wavelengths (0.3-10keV), with 15-30" resolution. This will be the first all-sky survey at 2-10keV, and will be around 20 times more sensitive than previous all-sky surveys at 0.5-2keV.



The main goals of the survey are to:

(1) detect the hot intergalactic gas of 50-100 thousand groups and clusters of galaxies, as well as detecting hot gas in filaments surrounding those structures;

(2) detect obscured accreting black holes in nearby galaxies, as well as up to 3 million new, distant AGN; and

(3) to study the physics of the galactic X-ray source population.



Following on from a previous agreement forged between Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for All-sky Astrophysics (CAASTRO) and the German part of the eROSITA consortium (eROSITA_DE),  AAL has taken over responsibility for the agreement with eROSITA and will promote collaborative projects utilising data, models, algorithms and simulations associated with eROSITA and Australia's astronomical facilities. The AAL-appointed eROSITA Australian Science Lead will facilitate collaboration between eROSITA_DE and Australian astronomers that required access to data from eROSITA_DE (covering Galactic longitudes 180 < l < 360) and Australian facilities/surveys/simulations.



We will soon be circulating a call for proposals to the Australian and eROSITA_DE communities for such collaborative projects.



Regards,

Matt Owers (eROSITA Australian Science Lead)


Matt Owers
eROSITA Australian Science Lead
Senior Lecturer
Department of Physics and Astronomy, Macquarie University
ph: +61 2 9850 8910

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