Anniversary: XMM-Newton Observatory Turns 10

British scientists managing the XMM-Newton space telescope are getting ready to celebrate the observatory's tenth birthday tomorrow. The European Space Agency (ESA) will organize a special event in Madrid, Spain, in order to celebrate the event. Over the course of its mission, the small bus-sized instrument has boosted our knowledge of the most bright and brutal regions of the Milky Way to new heights. It has conducted numerous surveys of the sky, each of them giving astronomers new insights into the Universe around us, ScienceDaily reports.

“After 10 years of operation and over 600 million kilometers on the clock, XMM-Newton is continuing to perform outstandingly well,” University of Leicester expert Dr. Steve Sembay says. He is the principal investigator of one of Newton's scientific instruments. “XMM-Newton has allowed astronomers to peer deeper than ever before into the cosmos at X-ray wavelengths, giving us new insights into some of the most extreme regions of the Universe,” UL Department of Physics and Astronomy Professor Mike Watson adds. He is also the observatory's survey scientist.

“It is still one of the foremost space observatories in operation, and one of the most successful space missions, yielding over 2,000 scientific publications to date. The instruments are still in very good condition and the discoveries and cutting-edge science continue to accumulate. Next year the University of Leicester celebrates the 50th anniversary of its involvement in space science. The success of XMM-Newton is a testament to the far-reaching implications of this research,” Watson adds.

Among the most important discoveries that the telescope made, scientists include the fact that black holes continue to grow, and, in the process, drive the evolution of the galaxies around them. In addition, XMM-Newton was also able to track the distribution of chemicals immediately after the explosion of a star, something that had never been achieved before. It also managed to trace galaxy clusters, the largest formations in the Universe, composed of tens or hundreds of galaxies. In addition, it compiled some of the largest catalogs available of cosmic X-ray emitters across the sky.