The Constellation-X Mission
Nicholas White
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Nicholas.E.White@nasa.gov
Additional authors:
Constellation-X is one of the Beyond Einstein Great Observatories and will extend our capability for high resolution X-ray spectroscopy by 25 to 100 times. A key goal is to observe the distortions of space-time close to the black hole event horizon by tracking spectral features emitted by gas falling into a black hole. The mission will also trace the evolution of black holes with cosmic time by obtaining detailed spectra of faint quasars at high redshift. Constellation-X will also observe the first clusters of galaxies to constrain dark energy and dark matter, and be able to search for spectral features from the surfaces of neutron stars, which could finally determine the properties of matter at nuclear density.
