The Marshall Star for December 13, 2023

Marshall Team Members Celebrate Holiday Season

By Jessica Barnett

For numerous employee at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, “consume, consume, and be merry” was the afternoon style for Dec. 7.

The center hosted a vacation event in Activities Building 4316, total with food, door rewards, and a lot of chance to want one pleased vacations. Performing Center Director Joseph Pelfrey invited staff member to the celebrations with a quick wrap-up of 2023 and eagerly anticipate 2024.

“I was enjoyed see such an exceptional turnout at the vacation reception,” Pelfrey stated after the reception. “This has actually been a remarkable year for us at Marshall, and it’s crucial we take some time this season to commemorate our successes and charge for 2024.”

Barnett, a Media Fusion worker, supports the Marshall Office of Communications.

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IXPE Marks 2 Years of Groundbreaking X-ray Astronomy

By Rick Smith

On Dec. 9, astronomers and physicists celebrated 2 years of landmark X-ray science by NASA’s IXPE (Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorerobjective.

IXPE is the joint NASA-Italian Space Agency objective to study polarized X-ray light. Polarization is a quality of light that can assist expose info about where that light originated from, such as the geometry and inner operations of the ultra-powerful energy sources from which it originates.

Released Dec. 9, 2021, IXPE orbits Earth some 340 miles high, studying X-ray emissions from effective cosmic phenomena thousands to billions of light-years from Earth, consisting of quasars, blazars, residues of supernova surges, and high-energy particle streams gushing from the area of great voids at almost the speed of light.

“Adding X-ray polarization to our toolbox of radio, infrared, and optical polarization is a video game changer,” stated Alan Marscher, a Boston University astronomer who leads a research study group that utilizes IXPE’s findings to examine supermassive great voids.

Martin Weisskopf, the astrophysicist who led the advancement of IXPE at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center and functioned as its primary private investigator till his retirement from NASA in spring 2022, concurred.

“There can be no concern that IXPE has actually revealed that X-ray polarimetry is very important and pertinent to enhancing our understanding of how these remarkable X-ray systems work,” Weisskopf stated.

Researchers have actually long comprehended, for instance, the principles of blazars such as Markarian 501 and Markarian 421A blazar is a huge great void feeding off product swirling around it in a disk, developing effective jets of high-speed cosmic particles which hurry away in 2 instructions perpendicular to the disk. How are those particles sped up to such high energies? IXPE information released in November 2022 in the journal Nature recognized the offender at Markarian 501 as a shock wave within the jet.

“This is a 40-year-old secret that we’ve resolved,” stated Yannis Liodakis, a NASA Postdoctoral Program scientist at Marshall. “We lastly had all of the pieces of the puzzle, and the image they made was clear.”

IXPE likewise performed unmatched research studies of 3 supernova residues– Cassiopeia A Tychoand SN 1006 — assisting researchers even more their understanding of the origin and procedures of the electromagnetic fields surrounding these phenomena.

IXPE is even shedding brand-new light on basic systems of our own galaxy. According to research studies IXPE carried out in early 2022, Sagittarius A *, the supermassive great void at the center of the Milky Way, got up about 200 years ago to feast on gas and other cosmic sediment, activating an extreme, short-term X-ray flare. By integrating information from IXPE, Chandra, and the European Space Agency’s XMM-Newton objective, scientists identified the occasion happened around the start of the 19th century.

“We understand modification can take place to active galaxies and supermassive great voids on a human timescale,” stated IXPE task researcher Steve Ehlert at Marshall. “IXPE is assisting us much better comprehend the timescale on which the great void at the center of our galaxy is altering. We’re excited to observe it even more to figure out which modifications are common and which are distinct.”

IXPE likewise has actually supported observations of unexpected cosmic occasions– such as the brightest pulse of extreme radiation ever tape-recorded, which swept through our planetary system in October 2022. The pulse came from an effective gamma-ray burst likely to happen no greater than as soon as in 10,000 years, scientists stated. Supporting information from NASA’s Fermi Space Telescope and other imagers, IXPE assisted figure out how the pulse was arranged and verified that Earth imagers saw the jet practically straight head-on.

Maybe most amazing to area researchers is how IXPE information is overthrowing standard knowledge about different classes of high-energy sources.

“So numerous of the polarized X-ray results we’ve seen over the previous 2 years were a huge surprise, tossing theoretical designs right out the window,” Ehlert stated. “Seeing outcomes we didn’t expect stimulates brand-new concerns, brand-new theories. It’s actually interesting!”

That enjoyment continues to develop amongst IXPE partners worldwide. In June, the objective was officially extended for 20 months beyond its preliminary two-year flight– implying IXPE will continue to observe high-energy X-ray emissions throughout the universes through a minimum of September 2025.

The brand-new year likewise will mark the start of the IXPE General Observer Program, which welcomes astrophysicists and other area researchers around the globe to propose and participate in research studies utilizing the IXPE telescope. Starting in February 2024, as much as 80% of IXPE’s time will be offered to the wider clinical neighborhood.

IXPE is a partnership in between NASA and the Italian S