Speaker Name:
Dr Martin Still
Speaker Affiliation:
SAAO
Talk Subject:
The Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer
Date:
08/08/2007 - 14:00
RXTE is a NASA spacecraft launched into low-Earth orbit in 1995 on a mission to study strong-gravity environments within the galaxy. As we now approach the last year of service, I review whether RXTE met it's primary design goals. Did it find evidence for black holes and define their fundamental parameters? Did it measure the extreme equations of state of neutron stars and did it test the general theory of relativity in strong-gravity conditions?