Hot gas pervades the Universe: about half of the baryonic content in\nthe Universe is expected to be at T > 105 K, and there are as many baryons at T\n> 107 trapped in galaxy clusters as there are locked into stars. There is an\nintimate relation between this hot gas, which delineates the large-scale\nstructure of the Universe, and the most energetic phenomena occurring in the\nimmediate vicinity of super-massive black holes, through a poorly known\nprocess called Cosmic Feedback. Studying the hot and energetic universe\nrequires X-ray observatories in space, whose capabilities greatly exceed those\nof the current workhorse observatories: NASA's Chandra and ESA's XMMNewton.\nAthena has been selected by ESA as the L2 mission (due for launch in\n2028), to address the ââ?¬Å?Hot and Energetic Universeââ?¬Â science theme. It will be a\nlarge X-ray observatory capable of addressing the above topics, and many\nother fundamental questions in contemporary astrophysics. Here we present the\nAthena science objectives, the mission concept and its payload, including the\nX-ray telescope and its two baseline instruments: a Wide Field Imager (WFI)\nand an X-ray Integral Field Unit (X-IFU).
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