X-ray astronomy is aimed at the understanding of the high-energy phenomena occurring in the Universe. Since our atmosphere blocks the X-ray photons, this branch of astronomy relies on observations made with satellites. In the past 30 years, X-ray astronomical observations had two main actors: the NASA satellite Chandra and XMM/Newton of the European Space Agency (ESA). The future, instead, goes
X-ray astronomy explores the high-energy Universe. X-rays are, in fact, high energy photons emitted by very hot gas (with temperature of some milion degrees) or by processes involving relativistic particles. Some astronomical sources of X-rays radiation are: accreting black holes, such as the supermassive black holes at the center of active galaxies, stellar coronae, supernova remnants, and clusters of galaxies.
of Mario Giuseppe Guarcello ( follow mguarce) In the past ten years the X-ray Universe has been explored mainly by two telescopes: the NASA satellite Chandra and the ESA satellite XMM-Newton. These two telescopes are still operating efficiently. However, the scientific community has already started planning the next generation of instruments for X-ray astronomy. In Europe, the future in
