NASA/JAXA’s XRISM Mission Captures Unmatched Data With Just 36 Pixels - NASA Science
science.nasa.gov
At a time when phone cameras are capable of taking snapshots with millions of pixels, an instrument on the Japan-led XRISM (X-ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission) satellite captures revolutionary science with just 36 of them. “That may sound impossible, but it’s actually true,” said Richard Kelley, the U.S. principal investigator for XRISM at NASA’s Goddard […]
  • fancyl@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    6 months ago

    The article explains it was launched last year and that is 6x6 pixels. But why not 7x7 or more? Is it due to the necessary cooling to just about absolute zero?

    • _WC@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      6 months ago

      Yes, that’s the short of it. Each pixel needs its own wires, readout, and processing chain, and resources are limited on the spacecraft. The cryostat (instrument that keeps the pixels cold) only has so much cooling capacity and all the wires add thermal load.

      Future missions are planned with more pixels (Take a look at the EASA Athena mission and its X-IFU instrument), and to reach that goal they are using multiplexing methods to allow more pixels to run on fewer wires.