ROSAT : The Roentgen Satellite
The Roentgen Satellite, ROSAT, a Germany/US/UK collaboration, was launched on June 1, 1990 and operated for almost 9 years. The first 6 months of the mission were dedicated to the all sky-survey (using the Position Sensitive Proportional Counter detector), followed by the pointed phase. The survey obtained by ROSAT was the first X-ray and XUV all-sky survey using an imaging telescope with an X-ray sensitivity of about a factor of 1000 better than that of UHURU. During the pointed phase ROSAT made deep observations of a wide variety of objects.
Mission Characteristics
Lifetime : 1 June 1990 - 12 February 1999
Energy Range : X-ray 0.1 - 2.5 keV , EUV 62-206 eV
Special Feature : All sky-survey in the soft X-ray band
Payload :
- An X-ray telescope used in conjunction with one
of the following instruments (0.1-2.5 keV)
- Position Sensitive Proportional Counter
(PSPC) 2 units : detector B, used for the pointed phase, & detector C ,used for the survey
FOV 2 ° diameter eff area 240 cm2 at 1 keV
energy resolution of deltaE/E=0.43 (E/0.93)-0.5
- High Resolution Imager (HRI)
FOV 38 ' square ; eff area 80 cm2 at 1 keV
~ 2 arcsec spatial resolution (FWHM)
- Position Sensitive Proportional Counter
- A Wide Field Camera with its own mirror system
(62-206 eV) FOV 5 ° diameter
Science Highlights:
- X-ray all-sky survey catalog, more than 150000 objects
- XUV all-sky survey catalog (479 objects)
- Source catalogs from the pointed phase (PSPC and HRI) containing ~ 100000 serendipitous sources
- Detailed morphology of supernova remnants and clusters of galaxies.
- Detection of shadowing of diffuse X-ray emission by molecular clouds.
- Detection (Finally!) of pulsations from Geminga.
- Detection of isolated neutron stars.
- Discovery of X-ray emission from comets.
- Observation of X-ray emission from the collision of Comet Shoemaker-Levy with Jupiter.
Archive : Catalogs, Spectra, Lightcurves, Images and Raw data Please use the Feedback link if you have questions on ROSAT.