The first images presented by NASA show X-ray emissions of various IXPE intensities mapped across the supernova in mid-January. The researchers will study the data to create the first X-ray polarization map of its kind in Cassiopeia A, which will provide insight into X-ray production in Cassiopeia A.
“The future polarizing images of IXPE should reveal the mechanism at the heart of this famous cosmic accelerator. To fill in some of those details, we have developed a way to make IXPE measurements more precise using machine learning techniques,” said Roger Romani, an IXPE researcher, in a press release. quoted by SINDOnews from The Verge page, Wednesday (16/2/2022).
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IXPE was launched by NASA in early December to study the polarization of XX-rays, or X-ray light whose vibrations are aligned in one direction. The IXPE rover built by the Chandra X-ray Observatory uses polarization to help explain exactly where X-ray light from space events comes from.
The second image shows the supernova Cassiopeia A in bright magenta and blue. Image uses combined data collected from IXPE (magenta region) and the Chandra X-Ray Observatory (blue region).
The Chandra data, collected shortly after the telescope was first launched in 1999, reveal evidence of objects such as black holes or neutron stars at the center of supernova remnants.
Cassiopeia A is the first of about 40 objects that NASA says will be studied during the first year of IXPE. In addition to exploring supernovae, the mission could answer questions about objects such as black holes.
Including how they rotate and whether the black hole at the center of our Milky Way ever eats up the material around it. Since space events cannot be regenerated in the lab, IXPE can be a tool to answer key questions, about physical phenomena in extreme environments.
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