ROSITA

Abstract

AbstractThe Max‐Planck‐Institut für extraterrestrische Physik, the Astrophysikalisches Institut Potsdam, and the Institut für Astronomie und Astrophysik of the university of Tübingen, together with European cooperation partners and ESA, plan to install an X‐ray telescope on the International Space Station (ISS). The mission ROSITA (ROentgen Survey with an Imaging Telescope Array) will perform the first imaging all‐sky survey in the medium energy X‐ray range up to 10 keV with an unprecedented spectral and angular resolution. The main scientific goals are (1) to detect systematically all obscured accreting Black Holes in nearby galaxies and altogether about 50,000 AGN in the 2‐10 keV band, (2) to detect the hot intergalactic medium of several ten thousand galaxy clusters, and (3) to study in detail the physics of galactic X‐ray source populations, like pre‐main sequence stars, supernova remnants, and X‐ray binaries. In the hard X‐ray band (above 2 keV) the ROSITA survey will have a hundred times higher sensitivity and a hundred times better angular resolution than the last all‐sky survey in this band, which was performed about 25 years ago. In the soft band (0.5‐2 keV) the ROSITA survey will be more sensitive and have a substantially better energy and also angular resolution than the ROSAT all‐sky survey. The telescope will consist of seven 27‐fold nested Wolter‐1 mirror systems, the type already flown on ABRIXAS, and a novel detector system currently being developed by MPE on the basis of the successful XMM pn‐CCD technology. Major improvements of the new camera are a higher time and energy resolution.