The Mission
Artist's impression of the Constellation X-ray Observatory.
Keck Observatory
The Constellation-X Observatory is a combination of several X-ray telescopes on one satellite, working in unison to generate the observing power of one giant telescope. The current plan calls for four soft X-ray telescopes and one or two hard X-ray telescopes. With the Observatory, scientists will investigate black holes, Einstein's Theory of General Relativity, galaxy formation, the evolution of the Universe on the largest scales, the recycling of matter and energy, and the nature of "dark matter."
Like all X-ray telescopes, Constellation-X must be positioned in space because X-ray light does not penetrate the Earth's atmosphere. Yet, in designing Constellation-X, scientists wanted an X-ray telescope similar to the large earth-bound telescopes to collect as much X-ray light as possible. These requirements led to the unique multi-telescope design of Constellation-X. The four telescopes combine to provide a sensitivity 100 times greater than any past or current X-ray satellite mission. Essentially, scientists will be able to collect more data in an hour than they would have collected in days or weeks with current X-ray telescopes. We will learn about thousands of faint X-ray emitting sources, not just the bright sources available to us today.
Constellation-X is modeled after the Keck Observatory, twin optical telescopes each 10 meters (33 feet) wide, positioned high atop Mauna Kea in Hawaii. Both observatories have superior collecting areas, or apertures, for analyzing the components of light. Both Keck and Constellation-X are complements to the great high-angular-resolution space telescopes: the Hubble Space Telescope and the Chandra X-ray Observatory, respectively. No single telescope can do it all, however. Hubble provides fantastic images of distant galaxies with unprecedented clarity, while the Earth-based Keck supports Hubble by collecting enough light to study the motion of the gas in those distant galaxies. Likewise, the Chandra Observatory, launched in 1999, has the best imaging resolution of any X-ray telescope so far. Scientists will use the unparalleled data from Constellation-X together with Chandra in analyzing X-ray light to form a more complete picture of the X-ray sky.
