#ixpe

[gemini-enthusiast]

X-ray imagery of Tycho supernova remnant, Chandra and IXPE.

[rollie-rolerson]

webb: ow my tertiary mirror

[ljamesart]

Character based on the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) observatory! fun 2022 commission for a client whose socials I don't know

🪩 COMMISSIONS: https://l-james.com/commissions/ 📯 FOLLOW ME: https://l-james.com/mail/ 🎉 FIND ME: https://l-james.com/social/

[netmassimo]

An article published in 'The Astrophysical Journal Letters' reports the results of a study on the region of very hot plasma that surrounds a

An article published in "The Astrophysical Journal Letters" reports the results of a study on the region of very hot plasma that surrounds a black hole called the corona. A group of researchers used detections conducted with the IXPE space telescope to obtain precise information on the corona of 12 black holes ranging from stellar-mass ones to supermassive black holes. For the first time, it was possible to observe the geometry of the corona of black holes and its relationship with the accretion disk that surrounds them. The geometry seems very similar regardless of the size of the black holes but this is still a tentative result.

[itsfullofstars]

[nasa]

We’re Upgrading Our X-ray Vision!

Think X-ray vision is a superpower found only in comics and movies? Unlike Superman and Supergirl, NASA has it for real, thanks to the X-ray observatories we’ve sent into orbit.

Now the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer – IXPE for short – has shot into space to enhance our superpower!

Meet IXPE

When dentists take X-ray pictures of a tooth, they use a machine that makes X-rays and captures them on a device placed on the opposite side. But X-rays also occur naturally. In astronomy, we observe X-rays made by distant objects to learn more about them.

IXPE will improve astronomers’ knowledge about some of these objects, like black holes, neutron stars, and the expanding clouds made by supernova explosions.

That’s because it will capture a piece of information about X-ray light that has only rarely been measured from space!

X-ray astronomers have learned a lot about the cosmos by measuring three properties of light – when it arrives, where it’s coming from, and what energies it has (think: colors). Picture these characteristics as making up three of the four sides of a pyramid. The missing piece is a property called polarization.

Polarization tells us how organized light is. This gives astronomers additional clues about how the X-rays were made and what matter they’ve passed through on their way to us. IXPE will explore this previously hidden side of cosmic X-ray sources.

What is polarization?

All light, from microwaves to gamma rays, is made from pairs of waves traveling together – one carrying electricity and the other magnetism. These two waves always vibrate at right angles (90°) to each other, with their peaks and valleys in sync, and they also vibrate at right angles to their direction of motion.

To keep things simple, we’ll illustrate only one of these waves – the one carrying electricity. If we could zoom into a typical beam of light, we’d see something like the animation above. It’s a mess, with all the wave peaks pointing in random directions.

When light interacts with matter, it can become better organized. Its electric field can vibrate in a way that keeps all the wave crests pointing in the same direction, as shown above. This is polarized light.

The amount and type of polarization we detect in light tell us more about its origin, as well as any matter it interacted with before reaching us.

Let’s look at the kinds of objects IXPE will study and what it may tell us about them.

Exploring star wrecks

Exploded stars create vast, rapidly expanding clouds called supernova remnants – like the Jellyfish Nebula above. It formed 4,000 years ago, but even today, the remnant’s heart can tell us about the extreme conditions following the star’s explosion.

X-rays give us a glimpse of the powerful processes at work during and after these explosions. IXPE will map remnants like this, revealing how X-rays are polarized across the entire object. This will help us better understand how these celestial cataclysms take place and evolve.

Magnifying supermagnets

Some supernovae leave behind neutron stars. They form when the core of a massive star collapses, squeezing more than our Sun’s mass into a ball only as wide as a city.

The collapse greatly ramps up their spin. Some neutron stars rotate hundreds of times a second! Their magnetic fields also get a tremendous boost, becoming trillions of times stronger than Earth’s. One type, called a magnetar, boasts the strongest magnetic fields known – a thousand times stronger than typical neutron stars.

These superdense, superspinning supermagnets frequently erupt in powerful outbursts (illustrated above) that emit lots of X-rays. IXPE will tell astronomers more about these eruptions and the extreme magnetic fields that help drive them.

Closing in on black holes

Black holes can form when massive stars collapse or when neutron stars crash together. Matter falling toward a black hole quickly settles into a hot, flat structure called an accretion disk. The disk’s inner edge gradually drains into the black hole. Notice how odd the disk appears from certain angles? This happens because the black hole’s extreme gravity distorts the path of light coming from the disk’s far side.

X-rays near the black hole can bounce off the disk before heading to our telescopes, and this polarizes the light. What’s exciting is that the light is polarized differently across the disk. The differences depend both on the energies of the X-rays and on what parts of the disk they strike. IXPE observations will provide astronomers with a detailed picture of what’s happening around black holes in our galaxy that can’t be captured in any other way.

By tracking how X-ray light is organized, IXPE will add a previously unseen dimension to our X-ray vision. It’s a major upgrade that will give astronomers a whole new perspective on some of the most intriguing objects in the universe.

Keep up with what’s happening in the universe and how we study it by following NASA Universe on Twitter and Facebook.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!

[eugenelacroix]

Reposted from @nasa Humanity first spotted this supernova in 1572. 📅 This supernova remnant is called Tycho, named for Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe, who noticed the bright glow of this new “star” in the constellation Cassiopeia 451 years ago. New observations by our Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) have built upon past data collected by @nasachandraxray. IXPE’s findings revealed, for the first time, the geometry of the magnetic fields close to the shock wave. Understanding the magnetic field geometry allows scientists to address some of the biggest questions in astrophysics, such as how Tycho and other objects accelerate particles closer to the speed of light than the most powerful particle accelerators on Earth. The Tycho supernova blast itself released as much energy as the Sun would put out over the course of 10 billion years. That brilliance rendered the Tycho supernova visible to the naked eye here on Earth in 1572, when it was spotted by Brahe and other stargazers, potentially including an 8-year-old William Shakespeare, who would go on to describe it in an early passage of “Hamlet” at the turn of the 17th century. Image description: A large wispy cotton candy like supernova remnant dominates the center of the image. Hues of dark purple and white reveal x-ray data from IXPE while reds and blues present x-rays detected by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. The background of the image is dotted with stars in blue, red, green, and yellow, as observed by the Digitized Sky Survey. Credits: X-ray (IXPE: NASA/ASI/MSFC/INAF/R. Ferrazzoli, et al.), (Chandra: NASA/CXC/RIKEN & GSFC/T. Sato et al.) Optical: DSS Image processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/K. Arcand, L.Frattare & N.Wolk #NASA #Space #Supernova #Xray #Star #Galaxy #Cosmos #Astronomy #Shakespeare #Chandra #IXPE#eugenelacroix1 @eugenelacroix1 #photography https://www.instagram.com/p/CpSTh08oO7_/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]