Rossi X-Ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) was a spacecraft in low-earth circular orbit of 90 minutes.
RXTE was launched on December 30, 1995. Its mission was to study time variation of astronomical X-ray sources. The spacecraft was named after an Italian physicist Burno Benedetto Rossi.
The mission was deactivated on 5th January, 2012 after working for 16 years and 6 days.
RXTE solved one of the deepest mysteries in Astronomy.
It was known through observations that the galactic plane glows in X-rays whose brightness increases towards the galactic center.
Other observatories like Chandra and XMM-Newton were not able to give details of what's causing the glow. So, it was assumed by astronomers that the X-rays were coming from hot, diffuse Interstellar gas.
RXTE had mapped the X-ray background for 10 years since February, 1996. And NASA's another satellite COBE (Cosmic microwave Background Explorer) in early 1990s had also mapped the near-Infrared glow from our galaxy. The data from two satellites were matched.
As lots of individual stars glow in near-Infrared, it was suggested that X-ray emission in the galactic plane came from cataclysmic variables (a binary system with a star and a white dwarf).
White dwarfs are cores of dead stars and if they are in a binary, they will accrete gas from their companion star. Due to this process very high energy X-rays are released.
(New Map of Milky Way Reveals Millions of Unseen Objects - March 2006. heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov)
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| wikipedia.org |
RXTE was launched on December 30, 1995. Its mission was to study time variation of astronomical X-ray sources. The spacecraft was named after an Italian physicist Burno Benedetto Rossi.
The mission was deactivated on 5th January, 2012 after working for 16 years and 6 days.
RXTE solved one of the deepest mysteries in Astronomy.
It was known through observations that the galactic plane glows in X-rays whose brightness increases towards the galactic center.
Other observatories like Chandra and XMM-Newton were not able to give details of what's causing the glow. So, it was assumed by astronomers that the X-rays were coming from hot, diffuse Interstellar gas.
RXTE had mapped the X-ray background for 10 years since February, 1996. And NASA's another satellite COBE (Cosmic microwave Background Explorer) in early 1990s had also mapped the near-Infrared glow from our galaxy. The data from two satellites were matched.
 |
| Credit: NASA/RXTE-COBE/Revnivtsev et al. |
As lots of individual stars glow in near-Infrared, it was suggested that X-ray emission in the galactic plane came from cataclysmic variables (a binary system with a star and a white dwarf).
White dwarfs are cores of dead stars and if they are in a binary, they will accrete gas from their companion star. Due to this process very high energy X-rays are released.
(New Map of Milky Way Reveals Millions of Unseen Objects - March 2006. heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov)
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