A brand-new space telescope will soon reveal a hidden vision of the universe, potentially changing our understanding of black holes, supernovas and even the nature of the universe itself.
Not that one.
The European Space Agency and NASA are working together to launch the James Webb Space Telescope in December. A group of sholders watched excitedly on Thursday as they traveled to the space of a smaller observatory.
The IXPE mission was launched from Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 1 a.m. Eastern. The cost of the craft was $188 million, compared with the James Webb budget of $9.7 billion, which is expected to demonstrate a new form of astronomy. It will be the first time that it will perform X-ray polarimetry in the middle of the night.
Thomas Zurbuchen, the associate administrator of NASA's science mission directorate, said that it was giving them information about some of the most bizarre and exciting objects in space.
After its launch, IXPE was placed into an overhead position, where it remained for over three months. The telescope will spend several weeks there deploy its scientific instruments and begin its two-year mission.
X-rays can be used to observe the universe. Astronomers can use them to probe events such as superheated jets near black holes or explosions of stars in a way that other wavelengths cannot. X-rays are mostly absorbed by Earth's atmosphere, so they can only be studied from space.
NASA's Chandra X-ray and the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton observatory are two of the dedicated X-ray space telescopes that have launched. Scientists have mapped the spread of dark matter in clusters of galaxies and unveiled the birthplaces of stars inside gaseous nebulas with the help of these spaceships.
IXPE is different from its predecessors because of the use of X-ray polarimetry. If you have ever worn a pair of sunglasses, you know that they use thin slit to block horizontal light, but that they turn sideways to block vertical light. The principle is used in X-ray polarimetry. Astronomers will be able to observe the direction of the wavelike movement of the X-ray particles as they arrive, revealing the orientation of incoming electric and magnetic fields. Astronomers can get more information from the X-rays emitted by astrophysical phenomena with this data.
The telescope will be extended during its first week in space because it is three separate telescopes, each consisting of 24 mirrors, at the end of a 13-foot long boom.
The X-rays will be focused by each telescope onto three detectors at the end of the boom. The detectors contain a layer of a gas called dimethyl ether. The tracks in the gas will be made by the X-rays, which will reveal the polarization of the X-rays.
The Italian Space Agency designed the detectors, which will give an image of the polarization.
Martin Weisskopf, the mission's principal investigator at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, said that there have been several attempts at conducting X-ray polarimetry in space before. In 1971 Dr. Weisskopf was involved in a successful experiment that used a sounding rocket to perform X-ray observations of the Crab nebula in our galaxy. The collapse of the Soviet Union interrupted the launch of a more advanced polarimeter on the Soviet Spectrum-X in the 1990s.
He said that they had been waiting a long time to have a polarimetry mission.
The image is.
The IXPE's solar array underwent testing and integration. The Italian Space Agency and NASA have a joint mission that costs $188 million.
NASA selected IXPE as part of its Small Explorers program in 2017, after his and other researchers' patience paid off.
The IXPE will observe more than 100 targets in the two years after it launches.
The goal of the telescope is to observe the spin of black holes that are 10 times the mass of the sun. The X-ray polarimetry will be able to investigate the effects of black holes on the X-ray photon's polarization angle as they travel through space-time.
For the first time, we can measure those distortions.
After giant stars collapse, the remnant cores of the stars will be probed by IXPE. Scientists are interested in the rotating neutron stars and magnetars.
Researchers hope to see how ironclad the laws of physics are by zeroing in on magnetars. The strong magnetic fields near the stars will cause a high level of polarization in the X-ray particles.
Ilaria Caiazzo is a researcher from the California Institute of Technology. If we found that it wasn't right, that would change everything. I think we will confirm this effect.
IXPE can tell us more about the moments after a star explodes. The data will show how the ejected material from a supernova interacts with the surrounding medium as it plows into it at extreme speeds. diffusive shock acceleration is a process in which electrons can pass back and forth across the shock front.
It is an important process in astronomy, but we don't fully understand the details. It is thought to be behind the bright supernova remnants.
The image is.
IXPE arrived at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida last month to be mounted on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket for Thursday's launch. A new form of astronomy is expected to be demonstrated by the spacecraft.
The primary mission is expected to last two years. The mission could last nearly two decades if NASA extends it. Astronomers could study Sagittarius A, the black hole at the center of our galaxy, with more time. They could look for evidence of increased activity from Sagittarius A by looking for the reflections of X-rays on clouds of gas near the black hole.
The clouds wouldn't be as bright as they seem if the black hole hadn't been there for so long. How long it takes for the X-rays to bounce toward us can be calculated. It is a very difficult experiment.
IXPE may be relatively modest compared to super-telescopes. It shows the breadth of astronomy that scientists are doing and the novel ways in which advanced machines are being used to explore our universe.
A host of hidden secrets will be unlocked with the opening of X-ray polarimetry.
Dr. Zurbuchen said it was a new way of looking at the sky.
