The XMM-Newton Science Operations Centre is organizing a major astrophysical symposium from 26 Monday to 30 Friday September 2005 in San Lorenzo de El Escorial, a small town in the mountains some 50 kilometres northwest of Madrid.

The main focus of the meeting will be on high energy astrophysics.

The XMM-Newton and Chandra space observatories have now been operating for half a decade and are continuing to provide superb data which is changing our view of almost every aspect of the Universe at high energies. In the near future the launch of Astro E-2 will provide enhanced capabilities for high resolution spectroscopy, and Swift will soon join HETE-2 in making detailed studies of gamma-ray bursts. Significant new insights are also emerging from Integral's view of the sky at hard X-ray and gamma-ray energies.

With this backdrop the "The X-ray Universe 2005" symposium is intended to encompass a broad range of high energy astrophysics topics, to provide a showcase for results and discoveries from current and near-future missions and a forum for the discussion of astrophysical themes with a high-energy connection.

The Symposium is scheduled to last for 5 days and will embrace the wide range of astrophysics in which XMM-Newton, Chandra and other missions are making important advances.

Session topics will include:

• Stars, stellar systems, planetary & cometary studies
• Interacting binary systems, SNR, pulsars
• The ISM and diffuse Galactic emission
• AGN, galaxies, clusters of galaxies
• Surveys, population studies and the cosmic X-ray background
• Gamma-ray bursts

Further details can be found at: http://www.congrex.nl/05a11/