NASA’s newest X-ray observatory rocketed into orbit Thursday to shed light on exploded stars, black holes and other violent high-energy events unfolding in the universe.
SpaceX launched the spacecraft on its $188 million mission from Kennedy Space Center. It’s called IXPE, short for Imaging X-ray Polarization Explorer.
Scientists said the observatory — actually three telescopes in one — will unveil the most dramatic and extreme parts of the universe as never before.
“IXPE is going to open a new window on the X-ray sky,” Brian Ramsey, NASA's deputy principal scientist, said this week.
Operations should begin next month. NASA is partnering with the Italian Space Agency on the project.
The National Institutes of Health is beginning a handful of studies to test possible treatments for long COVID, an anxiously awaited step in U.S. efforts against the mysterious condition that afflicts millions.
More than 70 years after doctors at Johns Hopkins Hospital took Henrietta Lacks’ cervical cells without her knowledge, a lawyer for her descendants said they have reached a settlement with a biotechnology company that they accused of reaping billions of dollars from a racist medical system.
