We are pleased to announce the publication of a brand-new website for the X-IFU spectrometer. This website has a new design, updated pages, and additional resources. We invite you to start browsing to find out more about the X-IFU and astronomy in general. Whether you are simply curious about the instrument, an astronomer, or a […]
The Nature Astronomy journal has published, this Thursday, 10th of September, a series of articles written by astronomers about the link between astronomical research and the climate crisis. This issue¹ highlights the need for urgent actions from all parts of society, including astronomers who, according to the articles, have a higher impact than the average […]
Athena is the second large mission of the Cosmic Vision science program of the European Space Agency. Dedicated to the study of the Hot and Energetic Universe, Athena will carry a large aperture X-ray telescope, and two complementary focal plane instruments: the Wide Field Imager (WFI) and the X-ray Integral Field Unit (X-IFU). The X-IFU […]
The Instrument Preliminary Requirement Review of the X-IFU has been declared successful by the joint ESA and CNES review Board, yesterday on April the 11th.Over 4 months, through different steps, the X-IFU has been evaluated by a panel formed by ESA and CNES senior experts. The consortium members have been compiling over 5000 pages of documentation […]
Jiri Svoboda from the Astronomical Institute (Czech Academy of Science) has been appointed board member, and Jan Soucek from the Institute of Atmospherics Physics (Czech Academy of Science) appointed Instrument Co-Investigator. This is the first step of the formal entry process of Czech Republic in the consortium. On the Finnish side, following the completion of […]
After more than four years of existence as a proto-consortium, on December 11th, 2018, following the successful completion of the instrument consortia confirmation process started in July, ESA formally appointed the X-IFU Consortium to provide the X-IFU for the Athena space X-ray Observatory: the second large mission of the ESA Cosmic Vision science program. This […]
Big day at IRAP, the Cryostat is now fully integrated and cooling down. This high precision technology equipment will eventually reach temperatures very close to the absolute zero (less than 50 mK !). Hence IRAP will host the coolest spot of Toulouse. This is a great achievement for the Athena X-IFU team and soon the […]
In preparation of the consortium formalization by ESA, an additional five X-IFU co-investigators were recently appointed : S. Bandler (US), E. Costantini (NS), L. Duband (FR), K. Sakai (JP) to which a German CoI will be soon added. Four scientists joined the X-IFU science advisory team : S. Ettori (IT), J. Kaastra (NL), P. Mazzotta (IT), A. […]
The new X-IFU web site, developed by Studio Urbain, released on May 11th, 2016. It is an evolution of the previous web site version.