In news– Recently the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched with NASA’s Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) spacecraft onboard from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
About IXPE mission-
- IXPE is an international collaboration between NASA, the Italian Space Agency, along with partners and providers in 12 other countries.
- It is NASA’s first mission dedicated to measuring the polarization of X-rays from the most extreme and mysterious objects in the universe – supernova remnants, supermassive black holes, and dozens of other high-energy objects.
- The mission’s primary length is two years and the observatory will be at 600 kilometers altitude, orbiting around Earth’s equator.
- IXPE is expected to study about 40 celestial objects in its first year in space.
- It will shed light on exploded stars, black holes and other violent high-energy events unfolding in the universe.
- IXPE carries three state-of-the-art space telescopes. Each of the three identical telescopes hosts one light-weight X-ray mirror and one detector unit.
- These will help observe polarized X-rays from neutron stars and supermassive black holes.
- This new mission will complement other X-ray telescopes such as the Chandra X-ray Observatory and the European Space Agency’s X-ray observatory, XMM-Newton.
