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Reposted by Benedikt Diemer

Laura Lopez @ohdearz.bsky.social · 09/03/2026

The @axisprobe.bsky.social team learned that the phase A concept study report of AXIS (the Advanced X-ray Imaging Satellite) will not be reviewed because the lost personnel at NASA Goddard and government shutdown impacted our schedule and budget. 🔭 Here is the PI's e-mail with the explanation.

Indeed, the AXIS Phase A work had major successes with furthering the key technologies. GSFC’s Next Generation X-ray Optics (NGXO) team successfully demonstrated iridium-coated, stress-compensated mirror segments that meet AXIS baseline requirements (i.e. segment-level performance at sub-arcsecond level). NGXO also built the first AXIS demonstrator mirror module, learning critical lessons about mirror alignment, mounting and bonding. On the detector side, MIT quickly moved to fabricate AXIS-like CCDs and, working with our colleagues at Stanford, recently demonstrated that they achieve the required readout rate and spectral resolution.

Similarly, NASA’s decision was NOT a judgment of the importance of AXIS science. The AXIS science case was rated excellent in the Step 1 review, and it only became stronger during our Phase A study. The AXIS Community Science Book, which many of you contributed to, is an extremely powerful demonstration of the relevance and importance of high-resolution X-ray observations to all areas of astrophysics. The Science Book is one of the most important legacies of the AXIS Phase A study and, I believe, will help define future mission concepts for many years to come. I thank you all from the bottom of my heart for all of your work on this.

AXIS has been a long journey; we started under the leadership of Richard Mushotzky more than nine years ago. During that time, it’s been an enormous privilege to work with amazing people; the AXIS science team, the incredible/brilliant GSFC and Northrop Grumman engineers, and the wider astrophysics community. I am, quite frankly, livid that AXIS ultimately fell victim to the programmatic chaos of 2025. The astronomical community deserves better. I hope that NASA leadership, especially at GSFC and HQ, can have an honest discussion about how to better support and protect programs during extraordinary times.

For now, as a community, we must look forward. There is still one excellent mission under consideration for the Probe program, PRIMA, and we wish them a smooth and speedy path to selection and flight. In X-ray astronomy, the SMEX and MidEX programs represent concrete pathways for focused, high-impact missions, and the scientific case we built for AXIS provides a strong foundation for those concepts. The technologies we advanced in Step 1 and Phase A, particularly the NGXO mirror work and the MIT/Stanford detector demonstrations, can anchor the next generation of proposals. Most importantly, the AXIS Community Science Book, representing more than 500 scientists across, is a living document and a powerful signal to NASA leadership that this community is organized, serious, and not going anywhere. I encourage everyone to use it actively, as a resource for future concept development, for Astro2030 engagement, and for building the next mission that will deliver high angular resolution X-ray imaging to address the fundamental questions about black hole growth, galaxy evolution, and the hot universe that motivated AXIS from the beginning. This community built something remarkable over nine years and that doesn't end here.

Thank you again for your support of AXIS over these times.

Best

Chris and the AXIS leadership team

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Benedikt Diemer @benedikt.bsky.social · 09/12/2025

Had some fun playing with visualizations that show the evolution of the cosmic web in an image instead of a movie (high-res versions are here: www.benediktdiemer.com/visualizatio...)

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Reposted by Benedikt Diemer

Astronomy on Tap DC @astroontapdc.bsky.social · 16/02/2025

Do you lie awake at night worrying about cosmic collapse? On Feb 18th, @benedikt.bsky.social will tell us why cosmic collapse keeps your lights on! Curious? Come to @dc9club.bsky.social to learn more! RSVP for your free ticket here: dice.fm/event/py7okw... Science made possible by your govt agencies

dice.fm

Astronomy on Tap Tickets | Free | 18 Feb @ DC9, Washington D.C. | DICE

͏feat: beer, trivia & space talks BAR OPENS at 5:00PM Astronomy on Tap DC features 3 speakers giving engaging talks about the Universe and prize giveaways....

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Benedikt Diemer @benedikt.bsky.social · 08/02/2025

This should be a fun one! Really looking forward to finally doing AoT DC 🍺🔭

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Benedikt Diemer @benedikt.bsky.social · 22/01/2025

I'm super excited about this paper on the arXiv today led by UGent grad student Andrea Gebek! Why are there basically no red galaxies in IllustrisTNG at cosmic noon? It's tempting to think that there might be something wrong about SFRs, but what about dust... arxiv.org/abs/2501.12008

arxiv.org

The mass-dependent UVJ diagram at cosmic noon: A challenge for galaxy evolution models and dust radiative transfer

Context. The UVJ color-color diagram is a widely used diagnostic to separate star-forming and quiescent galaxies. Observational data from photometric surveys reveal a strong stellar mass trend, with h...

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Benedikt Diemer @benedikt.bsky.social · 10/12/2024

On the arXiv: great work led by graduating student John Soltis and Michelle Ntampaka. The issue: the accretion rate is key for the properties of cluster halos, but we have no reliable observational proxies. So we decided to use ML to look for "optimal" info in realistic X-ray/SZ maps from MTNG.

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Benedikt Diemer @benedikt.bsky.social · 29/11/2024

Wrapping up 10 days in China by catching up with my undergrad adviser (after 16 years), friends, and collaborators... thanks for the fantastic visits, Tsinghua and Jiao Tong! A truly memorable trip. Apologies to all the ducks that got harmed in the process.

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Benedikt Diemer @benedikt.bsky.social · 17/11/2024

Just logged out of twitter for good and my mental health immediately improved by 6.3%

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Benedikt Diemer @benedikt.bsky.social · 12/03/2024

Need the age of the Universe at z = 5 but only got a phone? Wanna compute a correlation function without python? Fear not, for we are proudly presenting Colossus-Web, a powerful online cosmology calculator! colossus.astro.umd.edu More info in replies...

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Benedikt Diemer @benedikt.bsky.social · 20/11/2023

UMD astronomy is hiring! It's an open call, though we're particularly interested in observers this time. Feel free to message if you're interested and have questions, since I went through the process not that long ago. jobregister.aas.org/ad/2ac49c51

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