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NASA/JAXA’s XRISM Mission Captures Unmatched Data With Just 36 Pixels (science.nasa.gov)

submitted 4 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 months ago (1 children)

The article explains it was launched last year and that is 6x6 pixels. But why not 7x7 or more? Is it due to the necessary cooling to just about absolute zero?

[–] [email protected] 14 points 4 months ago

Yes, that's the short of it. Each pixel needs its own wires, readout, and processing chain, and resources are limited on the spacecraft. The cryostat (instrument that keeps the pixels cold) only has so much cooling capacity and all the wires add thermal load.

Future missions are planned with more pixels (Take a look at the EASA Athena mission and its X-IFU instrument), and to reach that goal they are using multiplexing methods to allow more pixels to run on fewer wires.