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Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE)

IXPE is NASA’s first mission to study the polarization of X-rays from many different types of celestial objects.

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IXPE Observatory

Who

Meet the Team Behind IXPE

NASA’s Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer, or IXPE, is a space observatory built to discover the secrets of some of the most extreme objects in the universe – the remnants of supernova explosions, powerful particle streams spit out by feeding black holes, and more.

Mission Type

X-ray Astronomy

Partners

Marshall Space Flight Center, Italian Space Agency, and Ball Aerospace

Launch

December 9, 2021

Mission Duration

Two Years

Latest News

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NASA’s IXPE Helps Researchers Determine Shape of Black Hole Corona

Article
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How Students Learn to Fly NASA’s IXPE Spacecraft

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IXPE Operations Update

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3 Min Read

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

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4 Min Read

NASA’s IXPE Helps Researchers Maximize ‘Microquasar’ Findings

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IXPE Blog

Passion and Precision: Meet IXPE Italian ‘Primo Tecnologo’ Elisabetta Cavazzuti

Italian astrophysicist Elisabetta Cavazzuti spends her spare time rappelling down steep cliffs and waterfalls. This sport, called “canyoning,” combines a sharp respect for physics and precision engineering with a deep love for the beauty of nature. The rest of the time, her focus is on the stars.

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n her spare time, Elisabetta Cavazzuti, seen here among fellow fans of the outdoors, is climbing a steep cliff with rock climbing gear on including a helment.
Elisabetta Cavazzuti, the Italian IXPE program manager, coordinates all IXPE technical and management activities for the Italian Space Agency, which partners with NASA on the X-ray polarimetry mission and its results.
Elisabetta Cavazzuti

IXPE is NASA’s first mission to study the polarization of X-rays from many different types of celestial objects.

IXPE builds on the discoveries of NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and other space telescopes by measuring the amount and direction of polarization of X-ray light.

IXPE’s polarization measurements will help scientists answer questions such as why black holes spin, how do pulsars shine so brightly in X-rays, and what powers the jets of energetic particles that are ejected from the region around the supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies.

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A black hole surrounded by an accretion disk with a jet protruding out of it, and a zoomed-in view of the jet showing different kinds of light being emitted after the particles hit the shock wave.
This illustration shows NASA’s IXPE spacecraft, at right, observing blazar Markarian 501, at left. A blazar is a black hole surrounded by a disk of gas and dust with a bright jet of high-energy particles pointed toward Earth. The inset illustration shows high-energy particles in the jet (blue). When the particles hit the shock wave, depicted as a white bar, the particles become energized and emit X-rays as they accelerate. Moving away from the shock, they emit lower-energy light: first visible, then infrared, and radio waves. Farther from the shock, the magnetic field lines are more chaotic, causing more turbulence in the particle stream.
NASA/Pablo Garcia

IXPE Blog

Learn more about the people, science, and goals of NASA’s Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE).

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Composite image of the Crab Nebula with X-rays from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory (blue and white), optical light from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope (purple), and infrared light from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope (pink).

IXPE

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Chandra X-ray Observatory

Chandra detects X-ray emissions from very hot regions of the universe such as exploded stars, clusters of galaxies, and matter around black holes.

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This composite image of the Crab Nebula, a supernova remnant, was assembled by combining data from five telescopes spanning nearly the entire breadth of the electromagnetic spectrum: the Very Large Array, the Spitzer Space Telescope, the Hubble Space Telescope, the XMM-Newton Observatory, and the Chandra X-ray Observatory.
Credits: NASA, ESA, NRAO/AUI/NSF and G. Dubner (University of Buenos Aires)