SRG/eROSITA micrometeoroid hits and effects

Michael J. Freyberg; Thomas Müller; Emanuele Perinati; Harald Krüger; Peter Strub; Christoph Tenzer; Andrea Merloni; Norbert Meidinger; Peter Predehl; Susanne Friedrich; Diogo Coutinho; Miriam Ramos-Ceja; Chandreyee Maitra; Konrad Dennerl; Christian Pommranz

doi:10.1117/12.2630890

31 August 2022 SRG/eROSITA micrometeoroid hits and effects

Michael J. Freyberg, Thomas Müller, Emanuele Perinati, Harald Krüger, Peter Strub, Christoph Tenzer, Andrea Merloni, Norbert Meidinger, Peter Predehl, Susanne Friedrich, Diogo Coutinho, Miriam Ramos-Ceja, Chandreyee Maitra, Konrad Dennerl, Christian Pommranz

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 12181, Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2022: Ultraviolet to Gamma Ray; 1218155 (2022) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2630890
Event: SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation, 2022, Montréal, Québec, Canada

Conference Poster

Abstract

Micrometeoroids are micron-sized dust particles orbiting at hypervelocities of a few tens of kilometers per second. Impacts on sensitive x-ray astronomical devices in space can degrade their performance and even lead to fatal loss of at least parts of their functionality, like in the case of two CCDs of the EPIC MOS1 camera aboard XMM-Newton. We summarize here the main parameters and effects of such micrometeoroid impacts on x-ray astronomical instrumentation in space, to serve as quick reference on this subject, e.g. for subsequent comparative studies. In particular, we list all related SRG/eROSITA events registered during the first two years of operations at the sun-Earth L2 point. None of these seven events has lead to any failure or significant reduction of instrument performance. Only bright pixels and column segments developed. They were either set to bad onboard or could be cured by computation of new offset maps or commanding of higher thresholds for individual pixels. Only one case was clearly associated with an intense optical light flash. Finally, we compare the number of registered events to predictions from interplanetary dust models of sporadic meteoroids from the interplanetary dust cloud and cometary meteoroid streams. The modelled dust fluxes for approximately 1 µm sized sporadic particles are in rough agreement with the number of events registered by eROSITA, while cometary meteoroid streams can most likely be excluded as origin of eROSITA hits.

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Michael J. Freyberg, Thomas Müller, Emanuele Perinati, Harald Krüger, Peter Strub, Christoph Tenzer, Andrea Merloni, Norbert Meidinger, Peter Predehl, Susanne Friedrich, Diogo Coutinho, Miriam Ramos-Ceja, Chandreyee Maitra, Konrad Dennerl, and Christian Pommranz "SRG/eROSITA micrometeoroid hits and effects", Proc. SPIE 12181, Space Telescopes and Instrumentation 2022: Ultraviolet to Gamma Ray, 1218155 (31 August 2022); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2630890

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