The search for signatures of cosmic bullets

M. Stuhlinger

doi:10.1117/12.671846

15 June 2006 The search for signatures of cosmic bullets

M. Stuhlinger

Proceedings Volume 6266, Space Telescopes and Instrumentation II: Ultraviolet to Gamma Ray; 62663S (2006) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.671846
Event: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, 2006, Orlando, Florida , United States

Abstract

Since its launch in 1999, the European X-ray observatory XMM-Newton has suffered, 4 times, possible micro-meteoroid impacts believed to occur in the mirror shells, scattering debris toward the focal plane. The latest event, on 2005 March 09^th, caused the loss of EPIC MOS1 CCD6, as well as small damage to MOS1 CCD1. This latter defect is leaking into the whole column that passes a few pixels from the nominal target position on CCD1 and affects a significant fraction of the on-axis source PSF (though the effects can be mitigated by suitable on-board offsetting of the signal from that column). We report on our investigations looking for possible pinholes in the XMM-Newton EPIC MOS1 filter created by micro-meteoroid generated debris. New simulation code allows modelling of pinhole patterns in real data sets. We will show the comparison between simulations and specially performed in-orbit detection measurements. These allow us to define the limiting size above which pinholes can be detected and to show if XMM-Newton's filters have suffered significantly from the micro-meteoroids.

Citation Download Citation

M. Stuhlinger "The search for signatures of cosmic bullets", Proc. SPIE 6266, Space Telescopes and Instrumentation II: Ultraviolet to Gamma Ray, 62663S (15 June 2006); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.671846

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