IXPE (Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer)

NASA’s IXPE (Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer) has helped astronomers better understand the shapes of structures essential to a black hole – specifically, the disk of material swirling around it, and the shifting plasma region called the corona.

Posted December 6, 2024

Astrophysics

Black Holes

Goddard Space Flight Center

IXPE (Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer)

Marshall Astrophysics

Marshall Space Flight Center

The Universe

How Students Learn to Fly NASA’s IXPE Spacecraft

The large wall monitor displaying a countdown shows 17 seconds when Amelia “Mia” De Herrera-Schnering tells her teammates “We have AOS,” meaning “acquisition of signal.” “Copy that, thank you,” Alexander Pichler replies.

Posted August 21, 2024

General

IXPE (Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer)

IXPE Operations Update

On March 23, NASA’s IXPE (Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer) stopped transmitting valid telemetry data. The only previous interruption of IXPE science observations was due to a similar issue in June of 2023.

Posted March 27, 2024

IXPE (Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer)

General

NASA’s IXPE Awarded Prestigious Prize in High-energy Astronomy

NASA’s IXPE (Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer) team has been awarded a top prize in high-energy astronomy.

Posted January 23, 2024

IXPE (Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer)

General

Marshall Space Flight Center

NASA’s IXPE Helps Researchers Maximize ‘Microquasar’ Findings

The powerful gravity fields of black holes can devour whole planets’ worth of matter – often so violently that they expel streams of particles traveling near the speed of light in formations known as jets.

Posted January 16, 2024

IXPE (Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer)

Marshall Space Flight Center

The Universe

NASA’s IXPE Marks Two Years of Groundbreaking X-ray Astronomy

On Dec. 9, astronomers and physicists will commemorate two years of landmark X-ray science by NASA’s IXPE (Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer) mission. IXPE is the joint NASA-Italian Space Agency mission to study polarized X-ray light.

Posted December 8, 2023

Chandra X-Ray Observatory

Astrophysics

IXPE (Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer)

Marshall Space Flight Center

The Universe

NASA X-ray Telescopes Reveal the “Bones” of a Ghostly Cosmic Hand

In 1895, Wilhelm Röntgen discovered X-rays and used them to image the bones in his wife’s hand, kicking off a revolutionary diagnostic tool for medicine. Now two of NASA’s X-ray space telescopes have combined their imaging powers to unveil the magnetic field “bones” of a remarkable hand-shaped structure in space.

Posted October 30, 2023

IXPE (Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer)

Marshall Space Flight Center

IXPE Untangles Theories Surrounding Historic Supernova Remnant

NASA’s IXPE (Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer) telescope has captured the first polarized X-ray imagery of the supernova remnant SN 1006. The new results expand scientists’ understanding of the relationship between magnetic fields and the flow of high-energy particles from exploding stars.

Posted October 26, 2023