von Hoerner & Sulger (Germany)

The near-infrared calibration unit (NI-CU) on board Euclid's Near-Infrared Spectrometer and Photometer (NISP) is the first astronomical calibration lamp based on light-emitting diodes (LEDs) to be operated in space. Euclid is a mission in ESA's Cosmic Vision 2015-2025 framework, to explore the dark universe and provide a next-level characterisation of the nature of gravitation, dark matter, and dark energy. Calibrating photometric and spectrometric measurements of galaxies to better than 1.5% accuracy in a survey homogeneously mapping ~14000 deg^2 of extragalactic sky requires a very detailed characterisation of near-infrared (NIR) detector properties, as well their constant monitoring in flight. To cover two of the main contributions - relative pixel-to-pixel sensitivity and non-linearity characteristics - as well as support other calibration activities, NI-CU was designed to provide spatially approximately homogeneous (<12% variations) and temporally stable illumination (0.1%-0.2% over 1200s) over the NISP detector plane, with minimal power consumption and energy dissipation. NI-CU is covers the spectral range ~[900,1900] nm - at cryo-operating temperature - at 5 fixed independent wavelengths to capture wavelength-dependent behaviour of the detectors, with fluence over a dynamic range of >=100 from ~15 ph s^-1 pixel^-1 to >1500 ph s^-1 pixel^-1. For this functionality, NI-CU is based on LEDs. We describe the rationale behind the decision and design process, describe the challenges in sourcing the right LEDs, as well as the qualification process and lessons learned. We also provide a description of the completed NI-CU, its capabilities and performance as well as its limits. NI-CU has been integrated into NISP and the Euclid satellite, and since Euclid's launch in July 2023 has started supporting survey operations.

&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Cosmic dust particles are important messengers. They contain information about their origin and their journey through space. The DESTINY&amp;lt;sup&amp;gt;+&amp;lt;/sup&amp;gt; mission that launches in 2024 provides the opportunity to investigate the dust populations present at 1 AU and around the active asteroid (3200) Phaethon. For this purpose, the Destiny&amp;lt;sup&amp;gt;+&amp;lt;/sup&amp;gt; Dust Analyzer (DDA) is employed. The instrument is developed under the lead of the University of Stuttgart in Germany. Its capabilities are to simultaneously analyze the dynamical and compositional properties of individual cosmic dust grains that are intersected along the mission. To gain independence from the S/C attitude a two axes pointing mechanism is developed. It provides an azimuthal range of 180&amp;amp;#176; and an elevation range of 90&amp;amp;#176;. The full instrument electronics is developed by the industry partner von Hoerner &amp;amp; Sulger GmbH in Schwetzingen, Germany while the software development takes place at the University of Stuttgart. The mass of the full instrument is ~12 kg and the power consumption is ~35 W in observation mode.&amp;amp;#160;The particle trajectory and grain size are determined by the trajectory sensor stage. It utilizes the fact that particles in space carry a surface charge. It consists out of a segmented plane of metal grids of which each is connected to a charge sensitive amplifier. This plane is sandwiched between two grids that are on ground potential. If a charged particle resides in between the grounded planes, it induces a mirror charge on the measurement grid segments. The incident angle, velocity and surface charge of the dust grains are reconstructed from the course and amplitude signal traces.&amp;amp;#160;An impact ionization time of flight mass spectrometer provides the compositional analysis of the dust grains. The sensor target is a gold surface with 300 cm&amp;amp;#178; sensitive area and a field of view of 1.99 steradian. Particles collide with the sensor target with relative speeds of several km&amp;amp;#183;s&amp;lt;sup&amp;gt;-1&amp;lt;/sup&amp;gt;. At impact they ionize and the impact plasma is manipulated by electric fields. The cations are accelerated, reflected and focused towards an electron multiplier wich functions as an ion detector. Here the cations are detected with high temporal resolution at two sensitivity stages. This allows to identifie the presence cations in the atomic mass range of 1 &amp;amp;#8211; 800 u with a high dynamic range. In the relevant ion mass range of silicates, carbon and metals the mass resolution is high enough so separate the individual atomic species. As the mass spectrometer is highly sensitive to contamination the target can be heater for decontamination. A door cover protects the cleanliness of the sensor interior during launch.&amp;amp;#160;Additionaly to the mass spectrum the cation charge is measured by charge sensitive amplifiers at an ion grid in front of the multiplier aperture and an ion ring around it. The negative plasma charge is measured at the target.&amp;amp;#160;All signal channels are contiuously active and analyzed by an FPGA. A frame of the signal set is stored as soon as trigger conditions are met. This sensitive yet robust system allows to separate actual dust impacts from noise events.&amp;amp;#160;An uncompressed signal set from an individual impact event has a size of ~400 kbit and 2 Gbit non volatile ram is available for storage. Data processing is performed by a SAMRH71 from Microchip. Lossless and lossy compression algorithms are implemented for reducing the packet size for downlink.&amp;amp;#160;The talk will give an overview of the instrument functionality and design. We will present the development status and the results of first dust impact measurement will be presented, that are obtained by laboratory measurements with a dust accelerator.&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt; &amp;lt;p&amp;gt;&amp;amp;#160;&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt; &amp;lt;p&amp;gt;&amp;lt;img src=&amp;quot;&amp;quot; alt=&amp;quot;&amp;quot; width=&amp;quot;1065&amp;quot; height=&amp;quot;858&amp;quot; /&amp;gt;&amp;lt;img /&amp;gt;&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt; &amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Crossection cut through the DDA Sensor. Pointing mechanism and sensor head for measuring cosmic dust particles are depicted. A separate electronics box (not depicted) is located inside the S/C.&amp;amp;#160;&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;

The Complete Calibration of the Color–Redshift Relation survey (C3R2) is a spectroscopic program designed to empirically calibrate the galaxy color–redshift relation to theEucliddepth (IE= 24.5), a key ingredient for the success of Stage IV dark energy projects based on weak lensing cosmology. A spectroscopic calibration sample that is as representative as possible of the galaxies in theEuclidweak lensing sample is being collected, selecting galaxies from a self-organizing map (SOM) representation of the galaxy color space. Here, we present the results of a near-infraredH- andK-band spectroscopic campaign carried out using the LUCI instruments at the LBT. For a total of 251 galaxies, we present new highly reliable redshifts in the 1.3 ≤ z ≤ 1.7 and 2 ≤ z ≤ 2.7 ranges. The newly-determined redshifts populate 49 SOM cells that previously contained no spectroscopic measurements and almost twice the occupation numbers of an additional 153 SOM cells. A final optical ground-based observational effort is needed to calibrate the missing cells, in particular in the redshift range 1.7 ≤ z ≤ 2.7, which lack spectroscopic calibration. In the end,Eucliditself will deliver telluric-free near-IR spectra that can complete the calibration.

Pair-instability supernovae are theorized supernovae that have not yet been observationally confirmed. They are predicted to exist in low-metallicity environments. Because overall metallicity becomes lower at higher redshifts, deep near-infrared transient surveys probing high-redshift supernovae are suitable to discover pair-instability supernovae. The Euclid satellite, which is planned to be launched in 2023, has a near-infrared wide-field instrument that is suitable for a high-redshift supernova survey. The Euclid Deep Survey is planned to make regular observations of three Euclid Deep Fields (40 deg2 in total) spanning the Euclid's 6 year primary mission period. While the observations of the Euclid Deep Fields are not frequent, we show that the predicted long duration of pair-instability supernovae would allow us to search for high-redshift pair-instability supernovae with the Euclid Deep Survey. Based on the current observational plan of the Euclid mission, we conduct survey simulations in order to estimate the expected numbers of pair-instability supernova discoveries. We find that up to several hundred pair-instability supernovae at z < ~ 3.5 can be discovered within the Euclid Deep Survey. We also show that pair-instability supernova candidates can be efficiently identified by their duration and color that can be determined with the current Euclid Deep Survey plan. We conclude that the Euclid mission can lead to the first confirmation of pair-instability supernovae if their event rates are as high as those predicted by recent theoretical studies. We also update the expected numbers of superluminous supernova discoveries in the Euclid Deep Survey based on the latest observational plan.

Context. The ESA Euclid mission will produce photometric galaxy samples over 15 000 square degrees of the sky that will be rich for clustering and weak lensing statistics. The accuracy of the cosmological constraints derived from these measurements will depend on the knowledge of the underlying redshift distributions based on photometric redshift calibrations. Aims. A new approach is proposed to use the stacked spectra from Euclid slitless spectroscopy to augment broad-band photometric information to constrain the redshift distribution with spectral energy distribution fitting. The high spectral resolution available in the stacked spectra complements the photometry and helps to break the colour-redshift degeneracy and constrain the redshift distribution of galaxy samples. Methods. We modelled the stacked spectra as a linear mixture of spectral templates. The mixture may be inverted to infer the underlying redshift distribution using constrained regression algorithms. We demonstrate the method on simulated Vera C. Rubin Observatory and Euclid mock survey data sets based on the Euclid Flagship mock galaxy catalogue. We assess the accuracy of the reconstruction by considering the inference of the baryon acoustic scale from angular two-point correlation function measurements. Results. We selected mock photometric galaxy samples at redshift z &gt; 1 using the self-organising map algorithm. Considering the idealised case without dust attenuation, we find that the redshift distributions of these samples can be recovered with 0.5% accuracy on the baryon acoustic scale. The estimates are not significantly degraded by the spectroscopic measurement noise due to the large sample size. However, the error degrades to 2% when the dust attenuation model is left free. We find that the colour degeneracies introduced by attenuation limit the accuracy considering the wavelength coverage of Euclid near-infrared spectroscopy.

The combination and cross-correlation of the upcoming Euclid data with cosmic microwave background (CMB) measurements is a source of great expectation since it will provide the largest lever arm of epochs, ranging from recombination to structure formation across the entire past light cone. In this work, we present forecasts for the joint analysis of Euclid and CMB data on the cosmological parameters of the standard cosmological model and some of its extensions. This work expands and complements the recently published forecasts based on Euclid-specific probes, namely galaxy clustering, weak lensing, and their cross-correlation. With some assumptions on the specifications of current and future CMB experiments, the predicted constraints are obtained from both a standard Fisher formalism and a posterior-fitting approach based on actual CMB data. Compared to a Euclid-only analysis, the addition of CMB data leads to a substantial impact on constraints for all cosmological parameters of the standard Λ-cold-dark-matter model, with improvements reaching up to a factor of ten. For the parameters of extended models, which include a redshift-dependent dark energy equation of state, non-zero curvature, and a phenomenological modification of gravity, improvements can be of the order of two to three, reaching higher than ten in some cases. The results highlight the crucial importance for cosmological constraints of the combination and cross-correlation of Euclid probes with CMB data.

(Abstracted from N Engl J Med 2017;377:1156–1167) Preterm birth, caused by idiopathic onset of uterine contractions or rupture of fetal membranes, is a major risk factor for death in neonates and children younger than 5 years. Although there is evidence that preterm birth and gestational duration are affected by both maternal and fetal genomes, robust associations with genetic variations are still not established.

Both Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer (APXS) and the Miniaturized Moessbauer Spectrometer (MIMOS II) have shown their performances in space missions and terrestrial applications. Taking advantage of the challenges of space missions both instruments have become very powerful tools, even small in mass and dimensions.

ABSTRACT Iron occurs naturally as Fe 2+ , Fe 3+ , and, to a lesser extent, as Fe 0 . Many fundamental (bio)geochemical processes are based on redox cycling between these oxidation states. Mossbauer spectroscopy provides quantitative information about the distribution of Fe among its oxidation states, identification of Fe-bearing phases, and relative distribution of Fe among those phases. Portable, miniaturised Mossbauer spectrometers were developed for NASA9s Mars Exploration Rovers (in operation since 2004) and provide a means for non-destructive, in-situ field investigations. On Mars, these instruments provided evidence for aqueous activity with implications for habitability, were applied in geological mapping of the landing sites, and helped to identify meteorites, for example. On Earth, they were used in field studies of green rust, the identification of air pollution sources, or the study of archaeological artefacts. Their application to in-situ resource utilisation (ISRU) on the Moon has been demonstrated in a recent NASA field test of hardware for oxygen production. A new detector system in an advanced version of these instruments is based on Si Drift Detectors and permits the simultaneous acquisition of X-ray fluorescence spectra to determine elemental compositions.