New space mission with Swiss participation gets the green light

With ESA’s decision, the mission enters its construction phase, as the Arrakihs mission consortium announced on Thursday.

Arrakihs is designed to study the faint light of so-called halos. These are spherical regions surrounding galaxies and consisting mainly of invisible dark matter. These halos contain clues as to how a galaxy formed and evolved.

The mission plans to map the remnants of smaller galaxies that have been torn apart by gravity. In total, at least 80 galaxies with a mass similar to that of the Milky Way are to be studied.

Several Swiss universities involved

Many of these structures are extremely faint and difficult to study systematically with existing instruments. This is how the mission’s scientific lead, Rebekka Coles-Bieri from the University of Zurich, was quoted in the mission consortium’s press release.

The Arrakihs mission is an international collaboration. The consortium, led by Spain, includes over 250 researchers and engineers from seven ESA member states, including Switzerland.

In addition to the University of Zurich, other Swiss institutions involved in the mission include the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL), the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland (FHNW), the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW), the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts (HSLU), and the company Koegl Space.