Stay Updated about IXPE

If you would like to receive emails about the latest IXPE developments, please send an e-mail to ixpe-announcements-join@lists.nasa.gov. to subscribe to the IXPE email announcements list.

The IXPE project invites members of the community to join your colleagues in a monthly forum designed to inform the IXPE user community of analysis techniques and tools, programmatic announcements, and data processing and calibration updates. The meetings will be held virtually on the 3rd Thursday of each month (starting in April 2026) at 10:00 am US Central Time. Please register your interest by filling out this Google form.

If you have scientist-related questions concerning IXPE please contact us using HEASARC's Feedback Form. Please be sure to select "IXPE" as the mailing list so that your question can be routed to the correct help desk promptly.

January 2026 - Henric Krawczynski wins Bruno Rossi Prize!

The 2026 HEAD Bruno Rossi Prize has been awarded to Henric Krawczynski for pioneering contributions to the theory, instrumentation, and scientific interpretation of X-ray polarimetry, including the first hard X-ray polarization measurements with XL-Calibur and enabling landmark IXPE discoveries; both of which have revolutionized our understanding of black hole accretion and relativistic outflows. Henric has been involved in important discoveries with NASA’s Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE). He has been an IXPE collaborator since selection of the mission and is first author on IXPE's first paper on stellar-mass black holes. This paper has contributed to the understanding of how material from a companion star falls towards a black hole and configures itself under the influence of gravity and magnetic fields and becomes a bright source of X-rays.

The Bruno Rossi Prize is awarded annually in honor of Bruno Rossi "for a significant contribution to High Energy Astrophysics, with particular emphasis on recent, original work" and is the highest honor specifically in high-energy astrophysics. Congratulations Henric!

January 2024 - IXPE wins Bruno Rossi Prize!

The 2024 HEAD Bruno Rossi Prize has been awarded to Martin Weisskopf, Paolo Soffitta and the IXPE team for their development of the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer whose novel measurements advance our understanding of particle acceleration and emission from astrophysical shocks, black holes and neutron stars.

The Bruno Rossi Prize is awarded annually in honor of Bruno Rossi "for a significant contribution to High Energy Astrophysics, with particular emphasis on recent, original work" and is the highest honor specifically in high-energy astrophysics.

Feb 14, 2022 IXPE first light!

Launched on 2021 December 09 (06:00 UTC), the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) is a NASA-ASI mission to measure x-ray polarization from compact objects such as neutron stars and black holes, which serve as laboratories for exploring extreme gravitational and magnetic fields. With its imaging capabilities, IXPE will also map the magnetic-field structure of a few extended sources such as supernova remnants and pulsar wind nebulae.

Credits: NASA/Joel Kowsky

On behalf of the international IXPE partnership, Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) manages the mission and generates IXPE science data products. The HEASARC hosts the permanent data archive and provides software tools released with HEASoft.

IXPE is the product of a collaboration between NASA and the Italian Space Agency (ASI), with major participation from Italy's National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF) and National Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN), Roma Tre University, Stanford University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Other university partners include Nagoya University, RIKEN, and the University of Colorado; primary industry partners are Ball Aerospace (Mission prime) and OHB-Italia (Instrument).

For more information, see the About IXPE tab.