ASTRO-E

Suzaku is a Japanese X-ray astronomy

X-ray astronomy

X-ray astronomy is an observational branch of astronomy which deals with the study of X-ray observation and detection from astronomical objects. X-radiation is absorbed by the Earth's atmosphere, so instruments to detect X-rays must be taken to high altitude by balloons, sounding rockets, and...

satellite launched on 10 July 2005 aboard the M-V-6 rocket. The project was renamed Suzaku after its successful launch after the mythical Vermilion bird of the South.

The Suzaku spacecraft functioned flawlessly until 29 July 2005 when the first of series of cooling system malfunctions occurred, that ultimately on 8 August 2005 caused the entire reservoir of liquid helium

Liquid helium

Helium exists in liquid form only at extremely low temperatures. The boiling point and critical point depend on the isotope of the helium; see the table below for values. The density of liquid helium-4 at its boiling point and 1 atmosphere is approximately 0.125 g/mL Helium-4 was first liquefied...

to boil off into space. This effectively shut down the XRS which is the spacecraft's primary instrument. The two other instruments, XIS and HXD, were unaffected by the malfunction, and there are plans to integrate another XRS into the proposed NeXT X-ray observation satellite planned for launch in 2012.

Suzaku instruments

Suzaku is carrying high spectroscopic resolution, very wide energy band instruments for detecting signals ranging from soft X-rays up to gamma-rays

Gamma ray

Gamma radiation, also known as gamma rays or hyphenated as gamma-rays and denoted as γ, is electromagnetic radiation of high frequency . Gamma rays are usually naturally produced on Earth by decay of high energy states in atomic nuclei...

(0.3–600 keV). High resolution spectroscopy and wide-band are essential factors to physically investigate high energy astronomical phenomena, such as black holes and supernovae. One such feature, the broad iron K line

Broad Iron K line

In astronomy, the broad iron K line is a spectral line that is an accurate measure of a black hole's immense gravitational force. The name refers to the shape, on a spectrogram, of light emitted by iron atoms near the black hole surface...

, may be key to more direct imaging of black holes.

X-ray Telescope (XRT)
X-ray Spectrometer (XRS)
X-ray Imaging Spectrometer (XIS)
Hard X-ray Detector (HXD)
- Uses Gadolinium Silicate crystal (GSO), Gd₂SiO₅(Ce)
- Uses Bismuth Germanate crystal (BGO), Bi₄Ge₃O₁₂

Suzaku is a replacement of ASTRO-E which was lost for the failure of launch vehicle. M-V-4 rocket launched on 10 February 2000 at 01:30:00 UTC but experienced a failure 42 seconds later, failed to achieve orbit and crashed with its payload into the ocean.

External links

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Suzaku instruments

ASTRO-E

Further reading

External links