A new pair of X-ray eyes in the universe is allowing us to see extreme objects like never before. Just over two months after its launch, NASA’s newest explorer — the Imaging X-Ray Polarimetry Explorer, or IXPE — has shared its first images.
And they are stunning. They offer a glimpse of Cassiopeia A, the famous supernova remnant.
Bright purple gas clouds can be seen around the star’s remains. These clouds were created when shock waves from the explosion heated the surrounding gas to incredibly high temperatures, accelerating high-energy particles called cosmic rays.
“The IXPE image of Cassiopeia A is beautiful, and we are looking forward to analyzing the polarimetry data to learn even more about this supernova remnant,” said Paolo Soffitta, the Italian principal investigator for IXPE at the National Institute of Astrophysics in Rome.
The spacecraft, a collaborative effort between NASA and the Italian Space Agency, carries three telescopes. While Cassiopeia A has previously been observed using other telescopes, IXPE is designed to reveal new insights into some of the most extreme objects in the universe, such as supernovae, black holes and neutron stars.
The beautiful supernova remnants are located about 11,000 light-years from Earth. It is now a giant expanding blob of hot gas, and it is the youngest known remnant of a supernova explosion in our Milky Way galaxy. Light from this supernova first reached Earth in the 1670s.
New discoveries
In the new image, X-ray data previously captured by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory can be seen in blue. Chandra was launched in 1999 and targeted Cassiopeia A immediately, revealing the presence of a black hole or neutron star at the center of the supernova remnant.
“The IXPE image of Cassiopeia A is as historic as the Chandra image of the same supernova remnant,” said Martin C. Weisskopf, IXPE principal investigator. “This demonstrates its potential to gain new and never-before-seen information.”
NASA’s new mission orbits 600 kilometers above Earth and has just wrapped up a month-long phase of testing its instruments. Although IXPE is not as large as Chandra, it is the first space observatory of its kind.
The satellite can see an often overlooked aspect of cosmic ray sources called polarization. Light becomes polarized when it passes through something that causes its particles to scatter.
All polarized light bears the unique imprint of its source and what it has experienced along the way. While unpolarized light waves can vibrate in any direction, polarized light only vibrates in one direction.
Source: CNN Brasil
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