XIS First Light

XIS is operational! The Suzaku team pointed the satellite at the remains of an exploded star. We can tell that the four X-ray Telescopes are working fine, producing the four false-color images, above left. (They show, not the true shape of the object, but the focusing quality of the telescopes.) We can also tell that the CCD chips can distinguish the energies of the incoming X-rays well, from the two sample spectra, shown above right.