XMM-Newton celebrates 25 years in space

25 years ago, on 10 December 1999, ESA’s X-ray space observatory XMM-Newton was launched from Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana on an Ariane 5. Since then, the spacecraft has been orbiting Earth more than 4500 times, logging 1.5 billion km and gathering uniquely sensitive observations of the X-ray sky.

Thanks to XMM-Newton, scientists can study in detail some of the most dramatic events and phenomena in our Universe. With a trove of more than a million detections of X-ray sources under its belt, the space telescope has contributed fundamentally to a better understanding of Active Galactic Nuclei, stars and extended sources such as the fiery hot intergalactic gas in clusters of galaxies.

Read more about some of its most prominent recent findings.