Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer

Discussion in 'Astronomy, Exobiology, & Cosmology' started by Yazata, Dec 9, 2021.

  1. Yazata Valued Senior Member

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    This is an orbiting x-ray telescope tweaked to be able to detect x-ray polarization. It's a joint project of NASA and the Italian Space Agency, which provided the satellite telescope's detectors. They say that the polarization of cosmic x-rays can provide lots of good information to astrophysicists about high energy objects like black holes, neutron stars and so on.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IXPE

    It will be launched in a few minutes at 10:00 PM PST Wednesday, 1:00 AM EST Thursday and 06:00 UTC.

    Lauch will be by SpaceX Falcon 9 from Pad 39A at Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral. Booster will be B1061 on its 5th trip to space. It's previous exploit include lofting both the Crew 1 and Crew 2 crewed trips to the Space Station. Recovery will be on JRTI out in the Atlantic.

    Livestream here

    [video=youtube]

    [video=youtube]
     
    Last edited: Dec 9, 2021

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