Broad Band X-ray Telescope
Broad Band X-ray Telescope
The Astro-1 observatory mounted on the Space Shuttle Columbia. (Credit: NASA)
Lifetime: December 1990
Country (primary): United States
Primary Science
The Broad Band X-ray Telescope, or BBXRT for short, was designed as the first focusing X-ray telescope to operate over a borad energy range (0.3 to 12 keV) with a moderate energy resolution. It was flown on the Space Shuttle Columbia (STS-35) as part of the Astro-1 payload (which also included three ultraviolet telescopes).
Science Highlights
- Resolved the iron K line in the binaries Centarus X-3 and Cygnus X-2
- Detected evidence of line broadening in NGC 4151
- Studied the cooling flow in clusters of galaxies
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