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[Music throughout] [XMM-Newton]

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[Launched on December 10, 1999,]

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[XMM-Newton is an ESA (European Space Agency) X-ray telescope supported by NASA.]

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[It has revolutionized the study of high-energy phenomena in the universe.]

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France Cordova: The longevity of XMM was not foreseen, it just kept

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right on going. Stephanie LaMassa: Something about looking at the night sky that just

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fills you with a sense of wonder and I just never grew up from that.

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Lisa Winter: XMM has been a part of my career from

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the earliest stages even until now.

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LaMassa: XMM is a space-based observatory that studies X-ray

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light from the most energetic phenomena in the universe. It spans

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[Stephanie LaMassa, Astronomer, Space Telescope Science Institute. Ph.D. thesis based on XMM-Newton data] the range of everything from studying energetic

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stars and exoplanets around those stars to the most distant universe.

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[Norbert Schartel, XMM-Newton Project Scientist, ESA] We can start with comets, which are very cold objects.

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We go then to compact objects where we observe

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very hot plasma near to the event horizon from a black hole.

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And then, completely different then we look in

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XMM-Newton data for signature of dark matter, and this

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I think makes this mission so great, that it allows such a

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broad science to be addressed. Cordova: I had a sabbatical

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in 1982 in the United Kingdom,

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and my officemate at the time was Steve Kahn. We had a

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third office mate it was Keith Mason. We came up with the

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[France Cordova, Director, National Science Foundation (NSF) Was co-PI of XMM-Newton Optical/UV Monitor Telescope] idea that it would be great to do multiwavelength

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observations from space. To do deep X-ray

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imaging and spectroscopy and simultaneously

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be able to observe cosmic sources in the ultraviolet

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and optical bands. If we could do all this from

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one platform in space, namely XMM, we

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it would be much more efficient. Then, when the X-rays saw something

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pop off, the ultraviolet/optical telescope would be right there

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seeing it right away. [Lisa Winter, Astronomer, NSF. Ph.D. thesis based on XMM-Newton data] XMM-Newton is

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a really fantastic telescope. It’s more than just one telescope

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actually. You can study the same object across a range

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of energies from the optical, where we can observe from

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the Earth, up into the UV and X-rays where you really have to go

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above into space. Cordova: It was great to be at the beginning

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of multiwavelength astronomy. There’s

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virtually no cosmic sources that just radiate at

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one frequency, and when you look at the universe with X-ray

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eyes you see something much different than when you look at the same universe in

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ultraviolet eyes. Steve Kahn: I led the US piece of one

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[Steve Kahn, Professor, SLAC National Accelerator Lab. Was co-PI of XMM-Newton Reflection Grating Spectrometer (RGS)] of the three major instruments on XMM-Newton, which was called the Reflection

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Grating Spectrometer. I developed the initial

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concept for that in the early 1980s when I was quite young.

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We knew that many systems in the universe emitted X-rays copiously, but

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we didn’t have very detailed models for how that X-ray emission

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arises and what it was actually telling us about the systems.

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[Maurice Leutenegger, Astronomer, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. Was XMM-Newton RGS team member] Spectroscopy is the study of light emitted by atoms,

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but it’s

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more than that because atoms are peculiar. When they shine they don't

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just give you all the colors of the rainbow, it looks more like

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a barcode. Kahn: You get very sharp peaks at very particular

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wavelengths and frequencies and those are associated with particular

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quantum states. Leutenegger: It’s extremely powerful, it’s just like a barcode, it

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looks like a bunch of garbage to human eyes but it can tell you

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you know, what’s in a product, and how much it costs, and what country it came from, and all that stuff.

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Kahn: By measuring that detailed pattern we can learn about the

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fundamental physics of what’s happening in these very exotic environments. What the

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temperatures are, the densities, the pressures. The spectroscopy that

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XMM-Newton did really answered a huge number of questions.

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Dheeraj Pasham: With the most recent result with XMM we were

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[Dheeraj Pasham, Einstein fellow, MIT. Ph.D. thesis based on XMM-Newton data] able to measure the spin of the black hole, and I liked the signal so much

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so that I put it on a cup and I drink from it every day, so. (laughs)

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Schartel: My son was shocked that other people

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in the school were knowing XMM-Newton.

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Small children from 10 years, that they know that XMM-Newton

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is X-ray satellite. Cordova: Ah, you know, it’s amazing. It’s like

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the Cal Ripkin of satellites, of space satellites, this

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thing that just keeps going and going and going and producing great data.

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Kahn: I’m delighted to see that number one the mission

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is still working and the instrument is stilling working and that there are

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all these young scientists that have been inspired to figure out great things to do with it.

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Cordova: And they’re using it for, in all sorts of ways, which is

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really amazing to see a telescope used in ways and for

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discoveries that you could never have predicted when you first were

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designing it and launching it. LaMassa: There’s certain science that

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XMM can do that other X-ray observatories

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can’t. Recently XMM has invested lots of

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time in these large-area multiwavelength survey

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fields including work that I’ve been leading, in a region

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of the sky that has lots of existing data.

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And that multiwavelength data is really important to harness the best scientific

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results out of XMM. Pasham: Astronomy is going through a revolution.

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There’s gravitational waves detected, there’s several kinds of weird

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supernovae detected, and having an X-ray instrument to

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simultaneously operate while these optical instruments are operating

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will be extremely beneficial. Winter: Many objects change — they have

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flares and outbursts — so it’s really a key

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observation to have everything from the X-ray, the optical,

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and the UV all precisely at the same time.

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Cordova: I’m so glad that XMM is a part of that, that it was

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taking people originally into the directions

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of the time, and today is taking people into entirely new directions.

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[XMM-Newton 20 years]

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[and looking forward]

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[Explore: Solar system & Beyond]

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[NASA]