2XMM compared to exisiting catalogues

The 2XMM Serendipitous EPIC Source Catalogue is the result of several years of development by the XMM-Newton Survey Science Centre (SSC), a consortium of institutes spread across Europe, on behalf of ESA.

In the study of energetic phenomena in the Universe, ranging from nearby comets to the most distant active galaxies, such a catalogue provides an unparalleled, invaluable new resource of information. The catalogue contains 247 000 X-ray source detections which relate to 192 000 unique X-ray sources, making it the largest collection of objects ever observed in the X-ray region of the electromagnetic spectrum.

Covering 360 square degrees of the sky, 2XMM complements deeper Chandra and XMM-Newton small area studies and covers astronomical objects that dominate the X-ray background spread across the Universe.