This is a Heritage program to study the ultimate products of structure formationin mass and time\: a large, unbiased, signal-to-noise limited sample of galaxyclusters detected by Planck via their Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect. Completing thehigh-fidelity XMM coverage of this sample has extraordinary legacy value. Wewill (i) obtain an unbiased vision of the statistical properties of the clusterpopulation; (ii) uncover the provenance of non-gravitational heating; (iii)measure how their gas is shaped by the collapse into dark matter haloes and themergers that built todays clusters; (iv) resolve the major uncertainties in massdeterminations that limit cosmological inferences; (v) build the foundation forcluster science with next-generation surveys.
Instrument
EMOS1, EMOS2, EPN, OM, RGS1, RGS2
Temporal Coverage
2020-11-02T14:08:50Z/2021-01-05T13:25:48Z
Version
18.02_20200221_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, Dr M S Arnaud-Ettori, 2021, 'Witnessing the culmination of structure formation in the Universe', 18.02_20200221_1200, European Space Agency, https://doi.org/10.5270/esa-rvblmo7
