The majority of the ordinary matter in the local Universe has been heated by strong structure formation shocks and resides in a largely unexplored hot, diffuse, X-ray emitting plasma that permeates the halos of galaxies, galaxy groups and clusters, and the cosmic web. We propose a next-generation “Cosmic Web Explorer” that will permit a complete and exhaustive understanding of these unseen baryons. This will be the first mission capable to reach the accretion shocks located several times farther than the virial radii of galaxy clusters, and reveal the out-of-equilibrium parts of the intra-cluster medium which are live witnesses to the physics of cosmic accretion. It will also enable a view of the thermodynamics, kinematics, and chemical composition of the circumgalactic medium in galaxies with masses similar to the Milky Way, at the same level of detail that Athena will unravel for the virialized regions of massive galaxy clusters, delivering a transformative understanding of the evolution of those galaxies in which most of the stars and metals in the Universe were formed. Finally, the proposed X-ray satellite will connect the dots of the large-scale structure by mapping, at high spectral resolution, as much as 100% of the diffuse gas hotter than 10⁶ K that fills the filaments of the cosmic web at low redshifts, down to an over-density of 1, both in emission and in absorption against the ubiquitous cosmic X-ray background, surveying at least 1600 square degrees over 5 years in orbit. This requires a large effective area (\(\sim \)10 m² at 1 keV) over a large field of view (\(\sim 1\) deg²), a megapixel cryogenic microcalorimeter array providing integral field spectroscopy with a resolving power E/ΔE = 2000 at 0.6 keV and a spatial resolution of 5\(^{\prime \prime }\) in the soft X-ray band, and a low and stable instrumental background ensuring high sensitivity to faint, extended emission.

局部宇宙中的大多数普通物质已被强烈的结构形成激波加热，并停留在很大程度上未被探索的，热的，弥漫的，发射X射线的等离子体中，该等离子体渗透到星系，星系团和星团以及宇宙网的光晕中。我们建议使用下一代“ Cosmic Web Explorer”，它可以对这些看不见的重子有一个完整而详尽的了解。这将是第一个能够达到比星系团的病毒半径更远几倍的增生冲击的任务，并揭示集群内介质的失衡部分，这些部分是宇宙增生物理学的真实见证。它还可以查看质量类似于银河系的星系中绕银河系介质的热力学，运动学和化学成分，甲吨ħ é Ñ一个将解开用于大规模星系团的virialized区域，提供在其中大部分在宇宙中的恒星和金属形成的那些星系演变的变革性的理解。最后，拟议的X射线卫星将通过在高光谱分辨率下进行映射，将比10 ⁶ K更热的弥散气体的100％映射为大型结构的点，该弥散气体的温度低至10 6K。在无处不在的宇宙X射线背景下，在发射和吸收方面都发生了红移，直至密度达到1的超高密度，并在5年的轨道上测量了至少1600平方度。这需要较大的有效面积（\（\ sim \） 10 m ²在1千电子伏）以上的大视场（\（\ SIM 1 \）度²），一万像素的低温微量阵列提供积分场光谱与分辨力ë / Δ ë = 2000在0.6千电子伏和空间的5分辨率\（^ {\ prime \ prime} \）处于柔和的X射线波段，并且低而稳定的仪器背景确保了对微弱，扩展发射的高度敏感性。