An artist’s impression of the IXPE mission NASA
NASA and the Italian Space Agency are scheduled to launch an X-ray-observing mission on Thursday that should give astronomers an important new tool for studying energetic objects across the universe.
The Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) will ride into orbit on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and will measure the polarisation of the X-ray light coming from objects including neutron stars, black holes and the glowing leftovers of exploded stars, known as supernovae remnants.
Polarisation can be thought of as a collective orientation of the electromagnetic waves…
