AstroSat, India’s multi-wavelength space telescope, has successfully
accomplished the extremely difficult task of measuring X-ray polarisation. In a
paper published in ‘Nature Astronomy’, the team has documented the results of
their eighteen-month study of the Crab pulsar in the Taurus Constellation and
measured the variations of polarisation as this highly magnetised object spins
around 30 times every second. This landmark measurement puts up a strong
challenge to prevailing theories of high energy X-ray emission from pulsars.
For
details, please visit:
https://www.ISRO.gov.in/update/06-nov-2017/czt-imager-of-astrosat-measures-first-phase-resolved-x-ray-polarisation-of-crab
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KSD/NK/PK
