NASA Celebrates Valentine’s Day With Stunning Image of Star Explosion From 11,000+ Years Ago [Photo and Details]

The human eye can see many things, but still, it has limits that are why scientists have invented powerful vision enhancers to discover stuff that is invisible to the naked eye.

Telescopes have been helpful for humans to see distant things. Over the years, experts have developed sophisticated ones that can capture images from outer space.

This Valentines Day, NASA offers an out-of-this-world gift to the public. It recently posted on Twitter the first imaging data taken by its Imaging X-Ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) observatory from the supernova Cassiopeia.- a remnant of a supernova with a distance of 11,000 light-years away from Earth.

The amazing image was the first data delivered since completing a commissioning period of one month. As per NBC News, the IXPE was launched on Dec. 9, 2021.

IXPE first focused its X-ray vision on Cassiopeia A, remnants of a star that exploded in the 17th century. The explosion's shock waves swept up surrounding gas, heating it to high temperatures and accelerating cosmic ray particles to form an X-ray-emitting cloud. Other telescopes have previously studied Cassiopeia A, but IXPE will allow researchers to look at it from a better perspective.

All the equipment of the IXPE is operating properly and ready to collect data from some of the most mysterious and extreme objects in the universe.

NASA Releases Historic Images

When the Chandra X-ray telescope was launched in 1999, the first image it captured was also of Cassiopeia A. Chandra's X-ray photos revealed the presence of a compact object in the center of the supernova remnant that could be a black hole or neutron star.

According to Martin C. Weisskopf, principal investigator of the IXPE, based at NASA's Marchall Space Flight Center in Alabama, the image of Cassiopeia A taken by the IXPE is "as historic" as the image taken by Chandra of the same supernova remains. He added that the image "demonstrates the IXPEs potential to gain new, never-before-seen information about Cassiopeia A" that scientists are currently analyzing.

Polarization, or how X-ray light is oriented as it travels through space, is a key measurement that scientists will make with IXPE. The polarization of light contains information about the environment in which the light originated. According to NASA, the instruments at IXPE also measure the energy, time of arrival, and position in the sky of cosmic X-rays.

More Discoveries in the Near Future

Stanford University-based IXPE co-investigator Roger Romani said that the upcoming polarization images of the IXPE "should unveil the mechanisms at the heart" of the well-known cosmic accelerator. He added that his team has established a method to make the IXPEs measurements more precise "using machine learning techniques."

Romani said they are "looking forward" to analyzing the data that will be collected.

The IXPE was launched through a collaborated mission between NASA and the Italian Space Agency and partners in 12 nations. The observatory was launched via a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral. It is orbiting 370 miles (600 kilometers) above the Earth's equator.

The operations of the spacecraft are being managed by Ball Aerospace, located at Broomfield, Colorado, according to NASA's website.

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Nasa, Space, Valentines