XRISM also carries a second instrument named Xtend that will operate simultaneously with Resolve. “I’m looking forward to the spectral revolution,” he said, adding that it will set the stage for even more ambitious X-ray telescopes in the future. Jan-Uwe Ness, an astronomer at the European Space Agency who will be managing the proposal selection process for Europe’s allotted observing time, said that the superior quality of data collected by XRISM’s spectroscopy may feel almost like visiting these extreme environments themselves. Corrales will analyze the composition of interstellar dust to glean insight into the chemical evolution of our universe. Lia Corrales, an astronomer at the University of Michigan who was selected as a participating scientist on the mission, sees XRISM as “a pioneer vehicle” that represents “the next step in X-ray observations.” With its state-of-the-art spectroscopy, Dr. The mission team expects Resolve’s spectroscopic data to be 30 times as sharp as the resolution of Chandra’s instruments. What distinguishes XRISM from those missions is a tool called Resolve, which must be cooled to just a fraction above absolute zero so that the instrument can measure tiny changes in temperature when X-rays hit its surface. XRISM will join a slew of other X-ray telescopes already in orbit, including NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, which launched in 1999, and NASA’s Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer, which joined the party in 2021. Unlike other wavelengths of light, cosmic X-rays can only be detected from above Earth’s atmosphere, which shields us from the harmful radiation. The technique gives scientists a view into some of the universe’s highest energy phenomena and will add to astronomers’ comprehensive, multiwavelength picture of the universe. From an orbit 350 miles above Earth, XRISM will study exotic environments that emit X-Ray radiation, including the accretion of material swirling around black holes, the blistering plasma permeating galaxy clusters, and the remnants of exploding massive stars.ĭata from the telescope will shed light on the motion and chemistry of these cosmic locales with a technique called spectroscopy, which relies on changes in the brightness of sources at different wavelengths to extract information about their composition. The X-Ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission - XRISM for short (and pronounced like “chrism”) - is the launch’s primary passenger. About 47 minutes after the flight began, launch officials were shown in a live video stream to be celebrating in the mission control room as the XRISM and SLIM spacecrafts headed toward their diverging cosmic destinations. The liftoff from the shores of Tanegashima, an island in the southern part of the Japanese archipelago, was picturesque, with the Japanese H-IIA rocket soaring over the remote launch site and disappearing into the blue skies that were punctuated by a few clouds. The two missions - XRISM and SLIM - would soon part ways, one headed off to spy on some of the hottest spots in our universe, the other to help Japan’s space agency, JAXA, test technologies that are to be used in larger-scale lunar landings in the future. Along for the ride was a robotic moon lander about the size of a small food truck. On Thursday morning in Japan, a bus-size telescope with X-Ray vision soared into space.
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