On Monday, January 1, the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) launched the X-ray Polarimeter Satellite (XPoSat) on its first space mission of 2024. At 9.10 in the morning, the satellite took out from Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh's Satish Dhawan Space Centre.This will be the next significant milestone in the history of Indian space exploration, following the Chandrayaan-3 and Aditya L1 missions.
With the help of this satellite, India will send a specialized astronomy observatory to investigate black holes and neutron stars in our galaxy, joining the United States as the second nation in the world to do so. It is the first specifically designed ISRO scientific satellite to conduct studies on polarization measurements of X-ray emission from astronomical sources from space.
Although India has established space-based X-ray astronomy with an emphasis on imaging and time domain investigations, the space agency stated that Monday's mission represents a significant contribution to the scientific community.
In order to conduct long-term spectral and temporal investigations of cosmic X-ray sources, the PSLV-C58 mission aims to measure the polarization of X-rays in the energy band 8-30 keV emitted by around 50 possible cosmic sources.
When analyzing the radiation process and geometry of astronomical sources, X-ray polarization is an essential diagnostic tool.
