Big Questions for XMM-Newton

• How do matter, energy, space, and time behave under the extraordinarily diverse conditions of the cosmos?

  How does the universe work? Understanding the Universe's birth and its ultimate fate are essential first steps to unveil the mechanisms of how it works. This, in turn, requires knowledge of its history, which started with the Big Bang.

• How did the universe originate and evolve to produce the galaxies, stars, and planets we see today?

  How did we get here? In order to understand how the Universe has changed from its initial simple state following the Big Bang (only cooling elementary particles like protons and electrons) into the magnificent Universe we see as we look at the night sky, we must understand how stars, galaxies and planets are formed.