Early today, NASA succeeded in launching the Imaging X-Ray Polarimetry Explorer( IXPE) into space atop a SpaceX Falcon rocket.
A report from The Verge specified that the two-year mission, a joint initiative with the Italian Agency, this first mission of NASA is devoted to investigating and measuring X-ray polarization.
The groundbreaking mission will enable NASA to investigate the origins of X-ray light, a high-energy light form generated during some of the most extreme celestial occurrences such as supernova explosions and violent collisions.
The said mission builds performed by the Chandra X-ray Observatory, the flagship X-ray astronomy mission of the space agency, launched in 1999, and has captured the fragments of exploded stars and more.
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A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches with NASA’s Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) spacecraft onboard from Launch Complex 39A, Thursday, Dec. 9, 2021, at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
NASA's IXPE
NASA's IXPE will offer more understanding of the astrophysical phenomena that Chandra has investigated in the past.
In addition, the imaging mechanism will start operations next month. During its initial year, the X-ray mission will examine roughly 40 astronomic objects with detailed and comprehensive follow-up observations in its succeeding year.
The IXPE mission comprises three identical telescopes that contain mirrors that will gather X-rays that originate from celestial objects, such as supermassive black holes, and have them focused onto detectors that can gauge their polarization.
Essentially, polarized light is light in which its vibrations are all aligned in one direction, different from the visible light from a lightbulb, which is scattering in each direction.
Answering Long-Awaited Questions
By investigating the mission's properties, astronomers can further discover what specific kind of environment it originated from. They can find out more and travel throughout the universe.
NASA said, the IXPE mission will have the long-awaited answers to questions such as how black holes are spinning and whether they are in the middle of the galaxy or were actively feeding on surrounding material before. It also hopes to find the reason pulsars are emitting so much X-ray light, The Telegraph said in a similar report.
The IXPE observatory detached from the rocket approximately 33 minutes into flight before it unfurled its solar arrays and entered an orbit around the equator of Earth.
In a press release, NASA said, after 40 minutes from the launch, the mission operators received the initial set of telemetry data from the spacecraft.
Even though it's said to be an overshadowed one, the launch of the IXPE is a major victory for the space agency as it prepares for the December 22 launch of the James Webb Telescope, the next major "eyes in the sky" of NASA
Science Behind the IXPE Mission
As mentioned earlier, x-rays in general, are a form of high-energy light. The NASA website describes it as originating from sites where matter goes through extreme conditions like "violent collisions, enormous explosions and fast rotations," among others.
They transport detailed information on the dominant phenomena that generate them. However, the atmosphere of earth is blocking cosmic X-rays from reaching the ground, therefore, they can only be retrieved by telescopes in telescopes in space.
Essentially, polarized light carries distinctive details about where the light is coming from and what it's passing through.
Furthermore, light is made up of interconnected waves of electric and magnetic fields, interacting with each other in a manner that's making them oscillate, or vibrate at right angles to the way the light travels.
Report about the launch is shown on KXAN's YouTube video below:
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