MOSCOW, July 31. /TASS/. Russian scientists have obtained the first image of a bright source of X-ray radiation — pulsar Centaur X-3 — using the space observatory Spektr-RG, the president of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), Alexander Sergeyev, told TASS on Wednesday.

"Yesterday the Russian telescope ART-XC, installed on the space observatory Spektr-RG, provided the first image of Centaur X-3, a bright source of X-ray radiation," Sergeyev said.

The deputy director for science of the RAS Space Research Institute, professor Alexander Lutovinov, told TASS the telescope was operating normally and all the seven modules showed the same picture.

"Centaur X-3 was the first X-ray pulsar discovered in early 1970s. It issues a pulse signal every 4.8 seconds. We see this signal in the data retrieved from the Spektr-RG observatory well enough. It is important that the observation of the pulsar was carried out with the help of Russia’s telescope ART-XC, which is a joint project of the RAS Space Research Institute and the Russian federal nuclear center in Sarov," Lutovinov said, adding that at the request of Russian scientists US and European observatories had conducted simultaneous observations for cross-calibration purposes.

Lutovinov added that the Spektr-RG’s other telescope, eROSITA, will be used for observations starting in late August.

Spektr-RG

Spektr-RG is a Russian-German high-energy astrophysics space observatory launched on July 13, 2019. Its mission is to create a map of the visible Universe in the X-ray band showing all major galaxy clusters.

The observatory carries two unique X-ray telescopes: ART-XC (Russia) and eROSITA (Germany). Both telescopes are installed on Russia’s platform Navigator configured especially for the project’s tasks.