A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched this morning carrying NASA’s Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer that will explore the most extreme and mysterious objects in the universe.
IXPE is the first observatory of its kind. It will not be as large as the Chandra X-ray Observatory, but what it lacks in imaging power is made up for by its ability to see aspects of cosmic X-ray sources and polarization that has mostly went unexplored up until now. “IXPE represents another extraordinary first. Together with our partners in Italy and around the world, we’ve added a new space observatory to our fleet that will shape our understanding of the universe for years to come,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASSA Headquarters in Washington. “Each NASA spacecraft is carefully chosen to target brand new observations enabling science, and IXPE is going to show us the violent universe around us, such as exploding stars and the black holes at the center of galaxies, in ways we’ve never been able to see it.” IXPE will seek to analyze polarized X-rays so that scientists can learn more about the structure and behavior of celestial objects, the physics of how those X-rays come into existence, and their surrounding environments. The space observatory’s polarization experiments will also hold tidbits of data to questions astronomers have pondered about for decades. Those are things like: What are the spins of black holes? What powers the mysterious illumination of pulsars, spinning dead stars so dense that a spoonful would weigh as much as a mountain on Earth? Does our understanding of the fundamental laws of physics hold up throughout the entire universe? A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched this morning carrying NASA’s Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) that will explore the most extreme and mysterious objects in the universe.
