NASA’s IXPE (Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer) has helped astronomers better understand the shapes of structures essential to a black hole – specifically,
) has helped astronomers better understand the shapes of structures essential to a black hole – specifically, the disk of material swirling around it, and the shifting plasma region called the corona.
“This outburst evolved incredibly quickly,” said astrophysicist Alexandra Veledina, a permanent researcher at the University of Turku, Finland. “From our first detection of the outburst, it took Swift J1727 just days to peak. By then, IXPE and numerous other telescopes and instruments were already collecting data. It was exhilarating to observe the outburst all the way through its return to inactivity.
Because light itself can’t escape their gravity, we can’t see black holes. We can only observe what is happening around them and draw conclusions about the mechanisms and processes that occur there. IXPE is crucial to that work.“Because light itself can’t escape their gravity, we can’t see black holes,” Veledina said. “We can only observe what is happening around them and draw conclusions about the mechanisms and processes that occur there. IXPE is crucial to that work.
A third and a fourth study, led by researchers Jiří Svoboda and Jakub Podgorný, both of the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague, focused on X-ray polarization at the second part of the Swift J1727’s outburst and its return to a highly energetic state several months later. For Podgorný’s previous efforts using IXPE data and black hole simulations, he recently was awarded the Czech Republic’s top national prize for a Ph.D. thesis in the natural sciences.
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