The NASA x JAXA XRISM (X-ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission) mission is officially set for launch on Sunday, August 27 from Japan’s Tanegashima Space Center at 8:26 p.m. EDT. Astronomers hope to use this mission study the aftermath of stellar explosions and near-light-speed particle jets launched by supermassive black holes in the centers of galaxies.
XRISM has two instruments – Resolve and Xtend – capable of detectoing X-rays with energies ranging from 400 to 12,000 electron volts. Resolve is essentially a microcalorimeter spectrometer equipped with a 6-by-6-pixel detector. When an X-ray hits this detector, its energy causes a tiny increase in temperature, and by measuring each individual X-ray’s energy, the instrument provides information about the source. Xtend provides XRISM one of the largest fields of view of any X-ray imaging satellite yet, and the images it captures will complement the data collected by Resolve.
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Once XRISM begins collecting data, scientists will have the opportunity to propose sources for the mission to study. Researchers from around the world will have access to the cutting-edge work XRISM will be doing,” said Mihoko Yukita, an astrophysicist at Goddard and Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore who works for NASA’s Guest Observer Facility for XRISM.
