What is Spektr-RG (SRG)?

About Spektr-RG(SRG):

• Spektr-Rentgen-Gamma (Spektr-RG, SRG) is a German-Russian high-energy astrophysics space observatory to study the universe in the X-ray range of electromagnetic radiation.
• It was launched on July 13, 2019, on a Proton-M rocket from the cosmodrome in Baikonur, Kazakhstan. 

• It moves along a so-called halo orbit around the outer Lagrange point (L2) of the Sun-Earth system at a distance of 1.5 million km from the Earth with a period of about 6 months.
  •  A Lagrange point is a position in space where the gravitational pull of two large masses precisely equals the centripetal force required for a      small object to move with them.

Instruments:

• The primary instrument of the mission is eROSITA, built by the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE) in Germany. 
  • It is designed to conduct a seven-year X-ray survey, the first in the medium X-ray band less than 10 keV energies, and the first to map an estimated 100,000 galaxy clusters. 
  • This survey may detect new clusters of galaxies and active galactic nuclei.
• The second instrument, ART-XC, is a Russian high-energy X-ray telescope capable of detecting supermassive black holes.
• It is intended to replace the Spektr-R, known as the “Russian Hubble”. Spektr-R was launched in 2011 to observe black holes, neutron stars, and magnetic fields, aiding understanding of cosmic expansion.