| Affiliation: | (1) Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA;(2) MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA;(3) Space Telescope Science Institute, 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA;(4) NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20770, USA;(5) Department of Astronomy, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA;(6) High Energy Density Physics and Astrophysics Division, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA 9455, USA;(7) Lockheed Martin Solar and Astrophysics Laboratory, 3176 Porter Dr., Palo Alto, CA 94304, USA;(8) National Institute of Standards and Technology, 325 Broadway, Boulder, CO 80305, USA;(9) Department of Physics, University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL 33146, USA;(10) Department of Physics, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706, USA;(11) Department of Physics, University of Florida, Gainsville, FL 32611, USA |
| Abstract: | Micro-X, the High-Resolution Microcalorimeter X-ray Imaging Rocket, is a sounding rocket space telescope that will combine
a transition-edge-sensor (TES) X-ray microcalorimeter array with a conical imaging mirror to obtain high spectral resolution
images of extended and point X-ray sources. Microcalorimeters measure the energy of an absorbed photon by sensing the increase
in temperature of the sensor from the thermalization of the absorbed photon’s energy. The advantages and scientific promise
of this technology have fueled active development for the past 20 years. We will leverage this development and take the next
step by producing a flight-qualified system that will serve as a pathfinder for future missions. Our scientific program will
initially focus on extended sources, for which our high-spectral-resolution observations have distinct advantages over other
technologies. For our initial flight, we will observe the bright eastern knot in the Puppis A remnant, a site of complex cloud-shock
interactions and ejecta enrichment. A Micro-X observation of the bright eastern knot of Puppis A will obtain a line-dominated
spectrum with 90,000 counts collected in 300 seconds at 2 eV resolution across the 0.3–2.5 keV band.
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