NASA is gearing up to launch a new set of eyes toward the cosmos. On Dec. 9, NASA will launch the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer or IXPE, spacecraft, that will help us better understand some of the most extreme objects in the universe.
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IXPE has three telescopes that will be looking at some of the highest energy, most dramatic, and most violent objects in the universe that challenge our ideas about modern physics such as black holes and neutron stars. These mysterious and violent stellar phenomena naturally emit X-rays, which is just what IXPE is going to study.
X-rays originate from places where matter is under extreme conditions – violent collisions, enormous explosions, 10-million-degree temperatures, fast rotations, and strong magnetic fields. X-rays hold the key to understanding these phenomena, but because Earth’s atmosphere blocks them from reaching us, they can only be observed by telescopes in orbit.
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