2 February

27 FEAB. 2004 Dáta foilsithe 890 Amhairc

2000: On 2 February 2000, it was announced that ESA's XMM-Newton spacecraft had taken its first pictures giving new views of the Universe.

After a successful launch from Kourou on Ariane 504 on 10 December 1999, XMM was brought to its final operational orbit in the following week. The telescope doors on the X-ray Mirror Modules and on the Optical Monitor telescope were opened on 17/18 December. The Radiation Monitor was activated on 19 December and the spacecraft was put into a quiet mode over the Christmas and New Year period.

On 4 January 2000, all the science payloads were switched on one after the other for initial verifications.

After a series of engineering exposures, all three EPIC cameras were used in turn, between 19-24 January, to take several views of two different extragalactic regions of the Universe. These views, featuring a variety of extended and X-ray point sources, were chosen to demonstrate the full functioning of the observatory.


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