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A decade of XMM-Newton

A decade of XMM-Newton

10 December 2009

On 10 December 2009 XMM-Newton, the most powerful X-ray observatory ever launched, celebrates its 10th anniversary. In the past decade XMM-Newton has peered into some of the most energetic phenomena in the Cosmos, and has revolutionised our understanding of the hidden and violent Universe.

Europe is one of the pioneers of high energy astronomy, and on 10 December 2009 ESA launched XMM-Newton to carry on the venture into the X-ray Universe. Observations made by XMM-Newton over the last 10 years have supplied new data for every discipline of astronomy and have yielded numerous discoveries.

A brief outline of the celestial wonders revealed by XMM-Newton can be found in the 'XMM-Newton celebrates decade of discovery press release', go here.

Further highlights of XMM-Newton discoveries and more detailed descriptions can be found in 'XMM-Newton celebrates a golden decade of X-ray astrophysics (In-depth)', go here.

To find out more about XMM-Newton, download an anniversary poster, view a video highlighting the past 10 years of XMM-Newton or even build your own model of the spacecraft, explore the links in the right-hand menu.

After a decade in orbit XMM-Newton has travelled more than 600 million kilometres and is still in excellent condition, supplying valuable data to scientists around the world.

Last Update: 1 September 2019
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