Russia launched a new space telescope

The Spektr-RG telescope is expected to be able to detect 3 million supermassive black holes and 100,000 new galaxies in operation.

The rocket propelled Proton-M of Russia on July 13 left the launch pad at Baikonur, Kazakhstan space airport, bringing Spektr-RG space telescope into orbit with the task of mapping the X-ray in the sky, Russian Space Agency said. Spektr-RG, co-developed by Germany, created to replace Spektr-R, a space observatory like "Russia's Hubble" was out of control earlier this year.

Russia's new space telescope rocket leaves the launch pad.(Photo: AFP).

The launch was originally scheduled for June 21 but was delayed twice due to a battery problem. In addition to the task of mapping the entire X-ray sky to a high-resolution sky, the new space telescope, weighing more than 2.7 tons, will assume the previous duties of Spektr-R, including observation black holes, neutron stars, magnetic fields and understanding the expansion of the universe.

"Spektr-RG Space Telescope will mark a new phase in X-ray astronomy with a history of more than 55 years," the Russian Space Agency said. "The project will allow year-round observation of almost all celestial bodies in the sky."

The research mission of the Spektr-RG telescope was set to last for six and a half years, including four years of sweeping the sky and two and a half years for observing spatial objects according to the instructions of the scientific community. international. It will take several months to enter the observation position about 1.5 million kilometers from Earth. It is expected that Spektr-RG will detect about 3 million supermassive black holes and about 100,000 clusters of galaxies extending across the universe during its lifetime.