The Indian Space Research Organisation is collaborating with the Raman Research Institute (RRI), Bengaluru, to build the X-Ray Polarimeter Satellite (XPoSat) that is scheduled to be launched later this year.
Key points
- XPoSat will study various dynamics of bright astronomical X-ray sources in extreme conditions.
- It has been billed as India’s first, and only the world’s second polarimetry mission that is meant to study various dynamics of bright astronomical X-ray sources in extreme conditions.
- The other such major mission is NASA’s Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) that was launched in 2021.
- X-rays have much higher energy and much shorter wavelengths, between 0.03 and 3 nanometers, so small that some x-rays are no bigger than a single atom of many elements.
- The physical temperature of an object determines the wavelength of the radiation it emits. The hotter the object, the shorter the wavelength of peak emission.
- X-rays come from objects that are millions of degrees Celsius — such as pulsars, galactic supernova remnants, and black holes.
- The spacecraft will carry two scientific payloads in a low earth orbit.
- The primary payload POLIX (Polarimeter Instrument in X-rays) will measure the polarimetry parameters (degree and angle of polarisation).
