The Franco-Chinese satellite of the Svom mission is due to take off in mid-2023.
It will carry two telescopes manufactured in Toulouse, one capable of detecting and observing the echo of explosions, well beyond our galaxy, of the very first stars.
The goal is to determine “how the universe ignited”.
Never have scientists seen so precisely so far, in the universe and in time.
In Toulouse, in Cnes clean rooms, engineers are putting the finishing touches to two telescopes which will leave for China before the summer.
They will be assembled there on the Mission Svom* satellite, which is scheduled to take off in mid-2023.
Placed in orbit 600 kilometers from the Earth, it will be responsible for detecting furtive, long-remaining mysterious, bursts of gamma rays which cross the sky approximately every three days.
Most of them correspond in fact to the radiation emitted, sometimes 12 billion years ago, by a large star which collapses on itself.
"It's an illumination deep in the celestial vault, far beyond our galaxy", explains François Gonzalez,
The Svom mission will have to systematically track down these supernovae, often at the origin of a new black hole.
With in the first curtain, the French telescope ECLAIRs, capable of detecting Gamma bursts but also of locating them on the celestial vault.
“These colossal explosions release in a few seconds the energy that our Sun will release throughout its life.
But as there are 50 to 70 of them per year, they should not be missed”, emphasizes Jean-Luc Atteia, scientific manager of the mission and member of the Institute for Research in Astrophysics and Planetology (Irap) in Toulouse.
Once the supernova has been spotted by ECLAIRs, another telescope takes over: the MTX instrument with its lobster eye, inspired by the crustacean.
This "revolutionary" optic made up of millions of glass microtubes "is a first in space" which allows the telescope, light as a feather, to capture as much light as possible in all directions and particularly ultraviolet rays, which replace gamma rays. captured by ECLAIRs, and allow the phenomenon to be observed for a few hours, or even a few days longer.
Real-time alerts to aim telescopes at the right place
These two observation instruments are supplemented on Earth by a network of around fifty VHF antennas, operated by Cnes and located on all continents around the equator, “on the roof of a university” for example.
This system allows the satellite to alert in real time the astronomers, amateurs or professionals of the whole world, so that they point their telescopes on the supernova.
The optics🦞 of the MXT telescope being tested at @CNES.
Next step: integration of the camera at the other end of the tube.
The🦞optics of the MXT telescope being tested at @CNES.
Next step: integration of the camera at the other end of the tube.
📸© CNES/DE PRADA Thierry, 2021 pic.twitter.com/ygMJQkK0jg
— SVOM (@SVOM_mission) June 7, 2021
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So why such a deployment to observe an event that has long since ended in a place that we will never reach.
“By studying gamma-ray bursts, we are studying the first generations of stars, replies astrophysicist Diego Götz from the Atomic Energy Commission.
To know how the first galaxies were formed and how the universe was lit.
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The Svom satellite will soon pick up messages from the depths of the Universe
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