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2037
Study phase
Lagrange Point 1
Astrophysics observatory
NewAthena combines the largest X-ray telescope ever built with state-of-the-art scientific instruments. The observatory’s scientific performance will exceed any existing or planned X-ray mission by a very large factor in several different areas: light collecting power, X-ray survey speed, weak emission line sensitivity and spatially-resolved high-resolution spectroscopy.
NewAthena will be able to rapidly respond to unexpected events occurring anywhere in the sky – within twelve hours for 34% of these events. The spacecraft will be able to follow-up on transient sources, most notably those associated with gravitational wave and neutrino events.
Artist impression of an active galaxy. Credit: ESA/AOES Medialab.
We want to uncover the secrets of black holes by addressing key questions about the Universe:
Trace cosmic structure formation:
How and why does ordinary matter assemble into the structures (galaxies, galaxy groups and galaxy clusters) that we see today?
Uncover black hole growth and impact:
How do black holes grow and shape their environment, and how do they influence the cosmological evolution of their host galaxies?
Follow the evolution of cosmic baryons:
How do the properties of baryons evolve from the epoch of structure formation to the current Universe?
Decode extreme cosmic events:
How do the most energetic and explosive phenomena in the Universe occur and inject energy into the surrounding environment?
New Athena will use X-ray spectroscopy and imaging to study the hot and energetic universe. It will capture the tiniest X-ray signals, transforming heat from cosmic photons into high-resolution data, all while operating at a frosty 50 millikelvin (-273.05 °C). This will result in detailed images of galaxy clusters, and the remnants of cosmic explosions. By analysing the ‘colours’ of the X-ray emissions, New Athena will reveal the physics of extreme environments, the evolution of matter in large scale structures such as groups and clusters of galaxies, the interaction between stars and planets and the impact of stellar flares on habitability, and the role of black holes in shaping the cosmos. A large field survey instrument will detect hundred of thousands of new X-ray sources, covering the full cosmological epochs from the present to an era when the Universe was ~10% of its age.
Credit: ESA. Instruments list: X-ray Integral Field Unit (X-IFU), Wide Field Imager (WFI), X-ray telescope.
NewAthena builds on the legacy of ESA's high-energy space observatories. Remarkable predecessors such as ESA's very first missions Cos-B, Exosat, Integral and XMM-Newton, as well as the JAXA-led mission XRISM have been expanding our knowledge about exotic objects in the Universe.
There is an exciting and unique opportunity for NewAthena to collaborate with ESA's forthcoming space-based gravitational wave detector LISA. Whilst both are individually outstanding, coordinating their observations will provide further breakthroughs and address fundamental questions in modern astrophysics.
NewAthena is an ESA-led mission with important contributions from NASA. Other international partners may join in the future. The WFI instrument is provided by an international consortium led by the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Germany, involving several ESA Member States and the US. The X-IFU instrument is provided by an international consortium led by France (with IRAP as the PI Institute and CNES as the managing authority), the Netherlands (SRON, Co-PI institute) and Italy (INAF-IAPS, Co-PI institute), with further contributions from several ESA Member States, and the US.
The making of silicon pore optics. Credit: Cosine Measurement Systems.
NewAthena's X-ray telescope requires the development of a new approach to mirror technology. We owe it to Slovenian researcher Dr Marcos Bavdaž who pioneered the concept of silicon pore optics – a breakthrough that earned him the highest ESA Award for Innovation and Transformation in Science and Technology. This revolutionary design delivers the same performance with a fraction of the weight of traditional mirrors.
Explore a subset of the ESA Science Programme missions here. Additional mission pages are in progress.
The currently available mission pages are ESA's flagship missions launched from 2013 and to be launched (L-class), and the ones in development (M- and F-class).
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