A midlife crisis for X-ray astronomy

摘要

On 18 June 1962, an 8-metre rocket carried three small X-ray detectors to the edge of space. They spent just under 6 minutes above the altitude of 80 kilometres, high enough for kiloelec-tronvolt-energy X-rays from space to reach them through the thinned atmosphere. The result of this brief flight by physicist Riccardo Giacconi and his colleagues revolutionized astronomers' view of what the Universe contains.