Solar Wind Charge Exchange contributes a significant background to X-rayobservations of extended astrophysical objects. For objects covering orextending beyond the instrumental FOV, determining the background from theobservation itself is difficult or impossible and a separate observation of thebackground may produce incorrect results, as the strength and spectrum of theSWCX emission is temporally variable. We will use the SWCX time variability tostudy and characterize its properties. We propose 4 observations of the sametarget spread over 2 years, to maximize the effect of the slowly varying SWCXemission. The target is the high latitude molecular cloud MBM12, to remove theeffect of background emission and maximize the SWCX signal.
Instrument
EMOS1, EMOS2, EPN, OM, RGS1, RGS2
Temporal Coverage
2010-07-31T02:18:23Z/2011-02-09T01:57:04Z
Version
17.56_20190403_1200
Mission Description
The European Space Agencys (ESA) X-ray Multi-Mirror Mission (XMM-Newton) was launched by an Ariane 504 on December 10th 1999. XMM-Newton is ESAs second cornerstone of the Horizon 2000 Science Programme. It carries 3 high throughput X-ray telescopes with an unprecedented effective area, and an optical monitor, the first flown on a X-ray observatory. The large collecting area and ability to make long uninterrupted exposures provide highly sensitive observations. Since Earths atmosphere blocks out all X-rays, only a telescope in space can detect and study celestial X-ray sources. The XMM-Newton mission is helping scientists to solve a number of cosmic mysteries, ranging from the enigmatic black holes to the origins of the Universe itself. Observing time on XMM-Newton is being made available to the scientific community, applying for observational periods on a competitive basis.
European Space Agency, Prof Massimiliano Gaeleazzi, 2012, 'Characterization of Solar Wind Charge Exchange', 17.56_20190403_1200, European Space Agency, https://doi.org/10.5270/esa-bzgs5dv
