An impression of XEUS, as a telescope comprising a detector spacecraft that receives cosmic X-rays focused by a mirror spacecraft, flying exactly 50 metres in front of it.

Imagine a telescope that can grow, out in space, like a blossoming flower. Think of it hunting among faint X-rays from the farthest reaches of cosmic space, in search of swarms of black holes that are suspected of being the very first objects to appear in the Universe. Then you will know the spirit of XEUS, an imaginative project under study by the European Space Agency together with European industry and a team of experts from universities and research institutes in Europe and Japan