ESA selects science theme for its next large mission
At its meeting in Paris today, the Science Programme
Committee of the European Space Agency (ESA) selected the “The Hot and
Energetic Universe” as the theme for its next Large (L-class) mission, which is
expected to be launched in 2028. The theme was proposed by an international
collaboration led by Kirpal Nandra, Director at the Max Planck Institute for
Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE). Having made a compelling case for this exciting
topic, the same team is now poised to propose a new mission concept to address
some of the most pressing questions in modern astrophysics. The Advanced
Telescope for High-energy Astrophysics (Athena) would provide the necessary
angular and spectral resolution, throughput, detection sensitivity, and survey
grasp to revolutionize our understanding of why the Universe looks the way it
does.